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A HISTORY 



SEPOY WAR IN INDIA 

1857-1858 



JOHN WILLIAM KAYE, F.R.S. 

AUTHOR OF 
"TUE history of the war in AFGHANISTAN" 



VOL. I. 



mtntb BOition (1880) 



LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 

LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY 
1896 

All fightg reserved 



69570 



TMP^fa 



-0229 U 



1 SHOULD HAVE DEDICATED 
THESE VOLUMES 

TO 

LORD CANNING; 

II A -^ I IF. LlVIil : 

I NOW INSCRIBE THEM REVERENTIALLY 

TO HIS MEMORY. 



CONTENTS OF VOL I 



BOOK I.— INTEODUCTOEY. 
CHAPTER I. 

THE CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB AND PEGU. 

FAOZ 

The Administration of Lord Dalhousie — His Tarewell Minute — Ue- 
irospect of the First Sikh War— Tiie Military Occupation of the 
Punjab— Tiie Council of Regency— The Second Sikh War— The 
Annexation of the Punjab — Its Administration under tlie Law- 
rences — The Conquest of Pegu 1 

CHAPTER II. 

THE "right OE lapse." 

The Administration of Lord Dalhousie — Adoption — The *' Right of 
Lapse" — Sattarah — Nagpore — Jhansi — Kerowlee — The Carnatic 
— Tanjore — Tiie Case of the Peishwah — DundooPunt, Nana Sahib 
— Sumbhulnore 69 



CHAPTER III. 

THE ANNEXATION OF OUDE. 

The Annexation of Oude — Early History of the Province — The 
Treaty of 1801^-Effects of the Double Government— Creation of 
tlie Kingship — Progress of Misrule — Repeated Warnings — The 
Unratified Treaty — Colonel Sleeman's Reports — Lord Dalhousie's 
Minute — Yiews of the Court of Directors — Sir James Outram 
Piesident — Annexation proclaimed 112 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

mOGKESS OF ENGLISHISM. 

Destruction of the Native Aristocracy — Retrospect of Eeveniie 
Administration — The Settlement of the North-West Provinces — 
The Ousting of the Talookhdars — Resumption Operations — The 
Inam Commission — Decay of Priestly Power — Social Reforms — 
Moral and Material Progress 153 



BOOK II.— THE SEPOY ARMY: ITS RISE, PROGRESS, 
AND DECLINE. 

CHAPTER I. 

EA.RLY HISTORY OF THE NATIVE ARMY. 

The Sepoy Army of the Company — Its Rise and Progress — TliePirst 
Mutiny in Bengal— Deteriorating Influences — Degradation of the 
Native Officer — The Reorganisation of 1796 — Progress of Innova- 
tion — The Mutiny of Yellore — Later Signs of Disaffection — 
Causes of the Mutiny 201 

CHAPTER IL 

DETERIORATING INFLUENCES. 

Subsidence of Alarm— The Soldier in England and in India — The 
Sepoy and his Officer — Deteriorating Influences — The Drainage of 
the Staff — Progress of Centralisation — The Reorganisation of 1824 
— The Barrackpore Mutiny— The Half-Batta Order— Abolition of 
Corporal Punishment . .252 

CHAPTER III. 

THE SINDH MUTINIES. 

The War in Afghanistan — Pernicious Effects of Defeat— The An- 
nexation of Scinde — Results of Extension of Empire — The Indus 
Allowances — Mutiny of the Thirty-fourth Regiment — Embarrass- 
ments of Government — The March of the Sixty-fourth — Mutiny 
at Shikarpore — Disaffection in the Madras Army .... 274 



CONTENTS. Vli 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE PUNJAB MUTINIES. 

Page 

The War on the Sutlej — Tlie Patna Conspiracy — Attempt to Corrupt 
the Sepoys at Dinapore — The Occupation of the Punjab — An- 
nexation and its Effects — Reduction of the Sepoy's Pay — The 
Mutinies at Rawul Pindee and Govindghur — Lord Dallionsie and 
Sir Charles Napier 303 

CHAPTER V. 

DISCIPLINE OF THE BENGAL ARMY. 

Character of the Bengal Sepoy — Conflicting Opinions— Caste-^The 
Seniority System — The Officering of the Army — Regular and Irre- 
gular Regiments — Want of Europeans — The Crimean War — Indian 
Public Opinion — Summary of Deteriorating Influences . • 324 



BOOK III.— THE OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 
CHAPTER I. 

LOUD CANNING AND HIS COUNCIL. 

Departure of Lord Dalhousie — His Character— The Question of Suc- 
cession — Arrival of Lord Canning — His Early Career— Commence- 
ment of his Administration — His Fellow-Councillors — General Low 
— Mr. Dorin — Mr. Grant— Mr. Barnes Peacock — The Commander- 
in-Chief 353 



CHAPTER II. 

THE OUDE ADMINISTRATION AND THE PERSIAN WAR. 

Lord Canning's Eirst Year— The Oude Commission— Waj id AH and 
the Embassy to England — The Persian War — The Question of 
Command— James Outram — Central-Asian Policy — Dost Mahomed 
— John Lawrence and Herbert Edwardes at Peshawur — Henry Law- 
rence in Lucknow ... 39 5 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER III. 

TH2 RISING OF THE STORM. 

PAGB 

Lord Canning and tlie Army — The Call for " More Officers" — Dread 
of the Black "Water — The General Service Enlistment Act — Anxie- 
ties and Alarms — Missionary Efforts— Proselytising Officers — Poli- 
tical Inquietudes — The Prophecy of Fifty-seven . . . .455 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE FIRST MUTINY. 

The new Rifled Musket— The Story of the Greased Cartridges — 
Dum-Dum and Barrackpore — Excitement in the Native Regiments 
— Events at Berhampore— Mutjnv of th** "^J'neteenth Regiment — 
Conduct of Colonel MitcijeJ . . . • • . .487 

CHAPTER V. 

PROGRESS OF MUTINY. 

Causes of delayed Action — The Government and tlie Departments — 
Investigation of the Cartridge Question — Progress of Disaffection 
at, Jbarrackpore — The Story of Mungul Pandy — Mutiny ot tne 
Thirty-fourth — Disbandment of the Nineteenth . . . .510 

CHAPTER VI. 

EXCITEMENT IN UPPER INDIA. 

Progress of Alarm — The Panic at Umballah — General Anson and 
the Rifle Depots — Incendiary Eires — General Barnard — Events at 
Meerut — The Bone-dust Elour — The Story of the Chupatties — 
Intrigues of the Nana Sahib 548 

CHAPTER VII. 

BURSTING OF THE STORM. 

The Montli of May — General Survey of Affairs — State of Feeling at 
the Rifle Depots — The Rising Storm in Oude — The Revolt at 
Meerut — The Seizure of Delhi — Measures of Lord Canning — The 
Call for Succours 581 



Appendix ^ , . . . 619 



FKEFAOE- 



It was not without mucli hesitation that I under- 
took to write this narrative of the events, which have 
imparted so painful a celebrity to the years 1857-58, 
and left behind them such terrible remembrances. 
Publicly and privately I had been frequently urged 
to do so, before I could consent to take upon myself 
a responsibility, which could not sit lightly on any 
one capable of appreciating the magnitude of the 
events themselves and of the many grave questions 
which they suggested. If, indeed, it had not been 
that, in course of time, I found, either actually in 
my hands or within my reach, materials of history 
such as it was at least improbable that any other 
writer could obtain, I should not have ventured upon 
so difficult a task. But having many important 
collections of papers in my possession, and having 
received promises of further assistance from surviv- 
ing actors in the scenes to be described, I felt that, 
though many might write a better history of the 
Sepoy War, no one could write a more truthful one. 



X PKEFACE. 

So, relying on these external advantages to com- 
pensate all inherent deficiencies, I commenced what 
I knew must be a labour of years, but what I felt 
would be also a labour of love. My materials were 
too ample to be otherwise than most sparingly dis- 
played. The prodigal citation of authorities has its 
advantages ; but it encumbers the text, it impedes 
the narrative, and swells to inordinate dimensions 
the record of historical events. On a former occa- 
sion, when I laid before the public an account of a 
series of important transactions, mainly derived from 
original documents, public and private, I quoted 
those documents freely both in the text and in the 
notes. As I was at that time wholly unknown to 
the public, it was necessary that I should cite chapter 
and verse to obtain credence for my statements. 
There was no ostensible reason why I should have 
known more about those transactions than any other 
writer (for it was merely the accident of private 
friendships and associations that placed such pro- 
fuse materials in my possession), and it seemed to be 
imperative upon me therefore to produce my cr© 
dentials. But, believing that this necessity no longer 
exists, I have in the present work abstained from 
adducing my authorities, for the mere purpose of 
substantiating my statements. I have quoted the 
voluminous correspondence in my possession only 
where there is some dramatic force and propriety in 
the words cited, or when they appear calculated, 
without impeding the narrative, to give colour and 
vitality to the story. 

And here I may observe that, as on former occa- 
sions, the historical materials which I have moulded 
into this narrative are rather of a private than of 
a public character. I have made but little use 



PREFACE. XI 

of recorded official documents. I do not mean 
that access to such documents has not been ex- 
tremely serviceable to me; but that it has rather 
afforded the means of verifying or correcting state- 
ments received from other sources than it has sup- 
plied me with original materials. So far as respects 
the accumulation of facts, this History would have 
differed but slightly from what it is, if I had never 
passed the door of a public office ; and, generally, 
the same may be said of the opinions which I 
have expressed. Those opinions, whether sound or 
unsound, are entirely my own personal opinions — 
opinions in many instances formed long ago, and 
confirmed by later events and more mature consi- 
deration. No one but myself is responsible for them ; 
no one else is in any way identified with them. In 
the wide range of inquiry embraced by the considera- 
tion of the manifold causes of the great convulsion of 
1857, almost every grave question of Indian govern- 
ment and administration presses forward, with more 
or less importunity, for notice. Where, on many 
points, opinions widely differ, and the policy, which 
is the practical expression of them, takes various 
shapes, it is a necessity that the writer of cotempo- 
rary history, in the exercise of independent thought, 
should find himself dissenting from the doctrines and 
disapproving the actions of some authorities, living 
and dead, who are worthy of all admiration and re- 
spect. It is fortunate, when, as in the present in- 
stance, this difference of opinion involves no diminu- 
tion of esteem, and the historian can discern worthy 
motives, and benevolent designs, and generous striv- 
ings after good, in those whose ways he may think 
erroneous and whose course of action he may deem 
unwise. 



Xll PREFACE. 

Indeed, the errors of which I have freely spokeit 
were, for the most part, strivings after good. It was 
in the over-eager pursuit of Humanity and Civilisa- 
tion that Indian statesmen of the neAv school were 
betrayed into the excesses which have been so griev- 
ously visited upon the nation. The story of the 
Indian Rebellion of 1857 is, perhaps, the most signal 
illustration of our great national character ever yet 
recorded in the annals of our country. It was the 
vehement self assertion of the Englishman that pro- 
duced this conflagration ; it was the same vehement 
self-assertion that enabled him, by God's blessing, to 
trample it out. It was a noble egotism, mighty alike 
in doing and in suffering, and it showed itself grandly 
capable of steadfastly confronting the dangers which 
it had brought down upon itself. If I have any pre- 
dominant theory it is this : Because we were too 
English the great crisis arose ; but it was only be- 
cause we were English that, when it arose, it did not 
utterly overwhelm us. 

It is my endeavour, also, to show how much both 
of the dangers which threatened British dominion in 
the East, and of the success with which they were 
encountered, is assignable to the individual characters 
of a few eminent men. With this object I have sought 
to bring the reader face to face with the principal 
actors in the events of the Sepoy War, and to take a 
personal interest in them. If it be true that the best 
history is that which most nearly resembles a bundle 
of biographies, it is especially true w^hen said with 
reference to Indian history ; for nowhere do the cha- 
racters of individual Englishmen impress themselves 
with a more vital reality upon the annals of the 
country in which they live ; nowhere are there such 
great opportunities of independent action ; nowhere 



PREFACE. Xiii 

are developed such capacities for evil or for good, as 
in our great Anglo-Indian Empire. If, then, in such 
a work as this, the biographical element were not 
prominently represented — if the individualities of 
such men as Dalhousie and Canning, as Henry and 
John Lawrence, as James Outram, as John Nichol- 
son, and Herbert Edwardes, were not duly illus- 
trated, there would be not only a cold and colourless, 
but also an unfaithful, picture of the origin and pro- 
gress of the War. But it is to be remarked that, in 
proportion as the individuality of the English leaders 
is distinct and strongly marked, that of the chiefs of 
the insurrectionary movement is faint and undecided. 
In the fact of this contrast we see the whole history 
of the success which, by God's providence, crowned 
the eiForts of our countrymen. If the individual 
energies of the leaders of the revolt had been com- 
mensurate with the power of the masses, we might 
have failed to extinguish such a conflagration. But 
the whole tendency of the English system had been 
to crush out those energies :, «o again, I say, we found 
in the very circumstances which had excited the 
rebellion the very elements of our success in sup- 
pressing it. Over the Indian Dead Level which that 
system had created, the English heroes marched tri- 
umphantly to victory. 

In conclusion, I have only to express my obhga- 
tions to those who have enabled me to write this 
History by supplying me with the materials of which 
it is composed. To the executors of the late Lord 
Canning, who placed in my hands the private and 
demi-official correspondence of the deceased &ti*.t<^s- 
man, extending over the whole term of his Indian 
administration, I am especially indebted. To Sir 
John Lawrence and Sir Herbert Edwardes, who have 



XIV PREFACE. 

furnished me with the most valuable materials for 
my narrative of the rising in the Punjab and the 
measures taken in that province for the re-capture of 
Delhi ; to the family of the late Colonel Baird Smith, 
for many interesting papers illustrative of the opera- 
tions of the great siege ; to Sir James Outram, who 
gave me before his death his correspondence relating 
to the brilliant operations in Oude ; to Sir Robert 
Hamilton, for much valuable matter in elucidation of 
the history of the Central Indian Campaign ; and to 
Mr. E. A. Reade, whose comprehensive knowledge 
of the progress of events in the North-Western Pro- 
vinces has been of material service to me, my warmest 
acknowledgments are due. But to no one am I 
more indebted than to Sir Charles Wood, Secretary 
of State for India, who has permitted me to con- 
sult the official records of his Department — a privi- 
lege which has enabled me to make much better use 
of the more private materials in my possession. No 
one, however, can know better or feel more strongly 
than myself, that much matter of interest contained 
in the multitudinous papers before me is unrepre- 
sented in my narrative. But such omissions are the 
necessities of a history so full of incident as this. If 
I had yielded h} tlie temptation to use urj illustrative 
materials more freely, I should have expanded this 
work beyond all acceptable liinits, 

London, October, IS 64. 



. . , For to think that an handful of people can, vmn the 

GREATEST COURAGE AND POLICY IN THE WORLD, EMBRACE TOO LARGE EX- 
TENT OF DOMINION, IT MAY HOLD FOR A TIME, BUT IT WILL FAIL SUDDENLY. 

— Bacon. 



... As FOR MERCENARY FORCES (WHICH IS THE HELP IN THIS CASE), 
ALL EXAMPLES SHOW THAT, WHATSOEVER ESTATE, OR PRINCE, DOTH REST 
UPON THEM, HE MAY SPREAD HIS FEATHERS FOR A TIME, BUT HE WILL MEW 
THEM SOON AFTER. — BaCOn. 



If THERE BE FUEL PREPARED, IT IS HARD TO TELL WHENCE THE SPARK 
SHALL COME THAT SHALL SET IT ON FIRE. ThE MATTER OF SEDITIONS IS OF 
TWO KINDS, MUCH POVERTY AND MUCH DISCONTENTMENT. It IS CERTAIN, 
SO MANY OVERTHROWN ESTATES, SO MANY VOTES FOR TROUBLES. . . . ThE 
CAUSES AND MOTIVES FOR SEDITION ARE, INNOVATIONS IN RELIGION, TAXES, 
ALTERATION OF LAWS AND CUSTOMS, BREAKING OF PRIVILEGES, GENERAL 
OPPRESSION, ADVANCEMENT OF UNWORTHY PERSONS, STRANGERS, DEATHS, 
DISBANDED SOLDIERS, FACTIONS GROWN DESPERATE ; AND WHATSOEVER IN 
OFFENDING PEOPLE JOINETH AND KNITTETH THEM IN A COMMON CAUSE.— 

Bacon. 



mSTORY OF THE SEPOY WAR. 



BOOK I.— INTEODUCTOET. 

[1846—1856.] 

CHAPTER L 

THE ADMIN ISTRATIOX OF LORD DALHOUSIE — HIS FAREWELL MINUTE — 
BETROSPECT OF THE FIRST SIKH WAR — THE MILITARY OCCUPATION O^ 
THE PUNJAB — THE COUNCIL OF REGENCY — THE SECOND SIKH WAR — 
THE ANNEXATION OF THE PUNJAB — ITS ADMINISTRATION UNDER THE 
LAWRENCES — THE CONQUEST OF PEGU. 

Broken in bodily health, but not enfeebled in spirit, 186G. 
by eight years of anxious toil, beneath an Indian 
sun, Lord Dalhousie laid down the reins of govern- 
ment and returned to his native country to die. Since 
the reign of Lord Wellesley, so great in written history, 
so momentous in practical results, there had been 
no such administration as that of Lord Dalhousie ; 
there had been no period in the annals of the Anglo- 
Indian Empire surcharged with such great political 
events, none which nearly approached it in the rapidity 
of its administrative progress. Peace and War had 
yielded their fruits with equal profusion. 

On the eve of resigning his high trust to the hands 
of another, Lord Dalhousie drew up an elaborate state- 

B 



2 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1856. paper reviewing the eventful years of his government. 
He had reason to rejoice in the retrospect ; for he had 
acted in accordance with the faith that was within 
him, honestly and earnestly working out his cherished 
principles, and there was a bright flush of success 
over all the apparent result. Peace and prosperity 
smiled upon the empire. That empire he had vastly 
extended, and by its extension he believed that he 
had consolidated our rule and imparted additional 
security to our tenure of the country. 

Of these great successes some account should be 
given at the outset of such a narrative as this ; for it 
is only by understanding and appreciating them that 
we can rightly estimate the subsequent crisis. It was 
in the Punjab and in Oude that many of the most 
important incidents of that crisis occurred. Lord 
Dalhousie found them Foreign States ; he left them 
British Provinces. 



1845-d6. Lord Hardinge conquered the Sikhs ; but he spared 
First occupa- the Punjab. Moderate in victory as resolute in war, 
tion ot tlie -j^Q i^f^ ^^Q empire of Runjeet Singh, shorn only of its 
outlying provinces, to be governed by his successors, 
and strove to protect the boy-prince against the law- 
lessness of his own soldiers. But it was felt that this 
forbearance was only an experimental forbearance; 
and the proclamation which announced the restora- 
tion of the Punjab to the Maharajah Duleep Singh 
sounded also a note of warning to the great military 
autocracy which had well-nigh overthrown the State. 
" If this opportunity," said the victor, " of rescuing 
the Sikh nation from military anarchy and misrule be 
neglected, and hostile opposition to the British army 
be renewed, the Government of India will make such 



THE MILITARY OCCUPATION OF LAHORE. 3 

Other arrangements for the future government of the 1846. 
Punjab as the interests and security of the British 
power may render just and expedient." Thus was the 
doubt expressed; thus were the consequences fore- 
shadowed. It did not seem likely that the experi- 
ment would succeed; but it was not less right to 
make it. It left the future destiny of the empire, 
under Providence, for the Sikhs themselves to deter- 
mine. It taught them how to preserve their national 
independence, and left them to work out the problem 
with their own hands. 

But Hardinge did more than this. He did not 
interfere with the internal administration, but he esta- 
blished a powerful military protectorate in the Punjab. 
He left the Durbar to govern the country after its 
own fashion, but he protected the Government against 
the lawless domination of its soldiery. The Sikh army 
was overawed by the presence of the British battalions ; 
and if the hour had produced the man — if there had 
been any wisdom, any love of country, in the councils 
of the nation — the Sikh Empire might have survived 
the great peril of the British military protectorate. 
But there was no one worthy to rule ; no one able to 
govern. The mother of the young Maharajah was 
nominally the Regent. There have been great queens 
in the East as in the AVest — women who have done 
for their people what men have been incapable of 
doing. But the mother of Duleep Singh was not one 
of these. To say that she loved herself better than 
her country is to use in courtesy the mildest words, 
which do not actually violate truth. She was, indeed, 
an evil presence in the nation. It rested with her to 
choose a minister, and the choice which she made was 
another great suicidal blow struck at the life of the 
Sikh Empire. It may have been difficult in this 

u 2 



4 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

IS4G, emergency to select the riglit man, for, in truth, there 
were not many wise men from whom a selection could 
be made. The Queen-Mother cut through the difficulty 
by selecting her paramour. 

Lai Singh was unpopular with the Durbar ; un- 
popular with the people ; and he failed. He might 
have been an able and an honest man, and yet have 
been found wanting in such a conjuncture. But he 
was probably the worst man in the Punjab on whom 
the duty of reconstructing a strong Sikh Government 
could have devolved. To do him justice, there were 
great difficulties in his way. He had to replenish an 
exhausted treasury by a course of unpopular retrench- 
ments. Troops were to be disbanded and Jagheers 
resumed. Lai Singh was not the man to do this, as 
one bowing to a painful necessity, and sacrificing 
himself to the exigencies of the State. Even in a coun- 
try where political virtue was but little understood, 
a course of duty consistently pursued for the benefit 
of the nation might have ensured for him some sort 
of respect. But whilst he was impoverishing others, 
he was enriching himself. It was not the public 
treasury, but the private purse that he sought to re- 
plenish, and better men were despK)iled to satisfy the 
greed of his hungry relatives and friends. Vicious 
among the vicious, he lived but for the indulgence of 
his own appetites, and ruled but for his own aggran- 
disement. The favourite of the Queen, he was the 
oppressor of the People. And though he tried to 
dazzle his British guests by rare displays of courtesy 
towards them, and made himself immensely popular 
among all ranks of the Army of Occupation by his 
incessant efforts to gratify them, he could not hide the 
one great patent fact, that a strong Sikh Government 



THE FALL OF LAL SLXGII. 5 

could never be established under the wuzeerat of Lai ]84G. 
Singh. 

But the British were not responsible for the failure. 
The Regent chose him ; and, bound by treaty not to 
exercise any interference in the internal administra- 
tion of the Lahore State, the British Government had 
only passively to ratify the choice. But it was a state 
of things burdened with evils of the most obtrusive 
kind. We were upholding an unprincipled ruler and 
an unprincipled minister at the point of our British 
bayonets, and thus aiding them to commit iniquities 
which, without such external support, they would 
not have long been suifered to perpetrate. The com- 
pact, however, was but for the current year; and 
even for that brief period there seemed but little pro- 
bability of Lai Singh tiding over the difficulties and 
dangers which beset his position. 

Very soon his treachery undid him. False to his 
own country, he was false also to the British Govern- 
ment. The province of Cashmere, which was one of 
the outlying dependencies taken by the British in pay- 
ment of the war-charges, had been made over to Gholab 
Singh, chief of the great Jummoo family, who had 
paid a million of money for the cession. But the 
transfer had been resisted by the local governor, who 
had ruled the province under the Sikh Rajahs, and 
covertly Lai Singh had encouraged the resistance. 
The nominal oiFender was brought to public trial, but Dec. 18 1ft. 
it was felt that the real criminal was Lai Singh, and 
that upon the issue of the inquiry depended the fate 
of the minister. It was soon apparent that he was a 
traitor, and that the other, though for intelligible 
reasons of his own, reluctant to render an account of 
his stewardship, was little more than a tool in his 



6 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

IS4G. hands. The disoTace of the mmister was the im- 

o 

mediate result of the investigation. He left the Durbar 
tent a prisoner under a guard, an hour before his own 
body-guard, of Sikh soldiers ; and the great seal of the 
Maharajah was placed in the hands of the British 
Resident. So fell Lai Singh ; and so fell also the first 
experiment to reconstruct a strong Sikh Government 
on a basis of national independence. 

Another experiment was then to be tried. There 
was not a native of the country to whose hands the 
destinies of the empire could be safely entrusted. Tf 
the power of the English conqueror were demanded 
to overawe the turbulent military element, English 
Avisdom and English integrity were no less needed, in 
that conjuncture, to quicken and to purify the corrupt 
councils of the State. Sikh statesmanship, protected 
against the armed violence of the Praetorian bands, 
which had overthrown so many ministries, had been 
fairly tried, and had been found miserably wanting. 
A purely native Government was not to be hazarded 
again. Averse as Hardinge had been, and still was, 
to sanction British interference in the internal ad- 
ministration of the Punjab, there was that in the com- 
plications before him which compelled him to over- 
come his reluctance. The choice, indeed, lay between 
a half measure, which might succeed, though truly 
there was small hope of success, and the total abandon- 
ment of the country to its own vices, which would 
have been speedily followed, in self-defence, by our 
direct assumption of the Government on our own 
account. Importuned by the Sikh Durbar, in the 
name of the Maharajah, Hardinge tried the former 
course. The next effort, therefore, to save the Sikh 
Empire from self-destruction, embraced the idea of a 
native Government, presided over by a British states- 



HENRY LAWRENCE. 7 

man. A Ccitlicil of Regency was instituted, to be 1846. 
composed of Sikh chiefs, under the superintendence 
and control of the Resident ; or, in other words, the 
British Resident became the virtual ruler of the 
country. 

And this time the choice, or rather the accident, of 
the man was as propitious, as before it had been 
untoward and perverse. The English officer possessed 
well-nigh all the qualities which the Sikh Sirdar so 
deplorably lacked. A captain of the Bengal Artillery, 
holding the higher rank of colonel by brevet for good 
service, Henry Lawrence had graduated in Punjabee 
diplomacy under George Clerk, and had accompanied 
to Caubul the Sikh Contingent, attached to Pollock's 1842. 
retributory force, combating its dubious fidelity, and 
controlling its predatory excesses on the way. After 
the return of the expedition to the British provinces, 
he had been appointed to represent our interests in 
Nepaul ; and there — for there was a lull in the san- 
guinary intrigues of that semi-barbarous Court — im- 
mersed in his books, and turning to good literary pur- 
pose his hours of leisure, he received at Catamandoo 
intelligence of the Sikh invasion, and of the death of 
George Broadfoot, and was summoned to take the 
place of that lamented officer as the agent of the 
Govern or- General on the frontier. In the negotiations 
which followed the conquest of the Khalsa army, he 
had taken the leading part, and, on the restoration of 
peace, had been appointed to the office of British 
Resident, or Minister, at Lahore, under the first ex- 
periment of a pure Sikh Government hedged in by 
British troops. 

If the character of the man thus placed at the head 
of afi^airs could have secured the success of this great 
compromise, it would have been successful far beyon'^ 



8 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1846. the expectations of its projectors. For no man ever 
undertook a high and important trust with a more 
solemn sense of his responsibility, or ever, with more 
singleness of purpose and more steadfast sincerity of 
heart, set himself to work, with God's blessing, to 
turn a great opportunity to great account for the 
benefit of his fellows. In Henry Lawrence a pure 
transparent nature, a simple manliness and truthful- 
ness of character, were combined with b'gh intel- 
lectual powers, and personal energies which nothing 
earthly could subdue. I may say it here, once for 
all, at the very outset of my story, that nowhere does 
this natural simplicity and truthfulness of character 
so often as in India survive a long career of public 
service. In that country public men are happily not 
exposed to the pernicious influences which in England 
shrivel them so fast into party leaders and parlia- 
mentary chiefs. With perfect singleness of aim and 
pure sincerity of purpose, they go, with level eyes, 
straight at the public good, never looking up in fear 
at the suspended sword of a parliamentary majority, 
and never turned aside by that fear into devious paths 
of trickery and finesse. It may be that ever since the 
days of Clive and Omichund an unsavoury odour has 
pervaded the reputation of Oriental dij)lomacy ; but 
the fact is, that our greatest successes have been 
achieved by men incapable of deceit, and by means 
which have invited scrutiny. When we have opposed 
craft to craft, and have sought to out-juggle our op- 
ponents, the end has been commonly disastrous. It 
is only by consummate honesty and transparent truth- 
fulness that the Talleyrands of the East have been 
beaten by such mere children in the world's ways as 
]\Iountstuart Elphinstone, Charles Metcalfe, James 
Outram, and Henry Lawrence. 



HENRY LAWPvENCE. y 

Henry La^vrence, indeed, was wholly without guile. 1846. 
He had great shrewdness and sagacity of character, 
and he could read and understand motives, to which 
his own breast was a stranger, for he had studied well 
the Oriental character. But he was singularly open 
and unreserved in all his dealings, and would rather 
have given his antagonist an advantage than have 
condescended to any small arts and petty trickeries 
to secure success. All men, indeed, trusted him ; for 
they knew that there was nothing selfish or sordid 
about him ; that the one desire of his heart was to 
benefit the people of the country in which it had 
pleased God to cast his lot. But he never suffered 
this plea of beneficence to prevail against his sense of 
justice. He was eminently, indeed, a just man, and 
altogether incapable of that casuistry which gives 
a gloss of humanity to self-seeking, and robs people 
for their own s'ood. He did not look upon the mis- 
government of a na.tive State as a valid reason for the 
absorption of its revenues, but thought that British 
power might be exercised for the protection of the 
oppressed, and British wisdom for the instruction and 
reformation of their oppressors, without adding a few 
more thousand square miles to the area of our British 
possessions, and a few more millions of people to the 
great muster-roll of British subjects in the East. 

Above the middle height, of a spare, gaunt frame, 
and a worn face bearing upon it the traces of mental 
toil and bodily suffering, he impressed you, at first 
sight, rather with a sense of masculine energy and 
resolution than of any milder and more endearing 
qualities. But when you came to know him, you saw 
at once that beneath that rugged exterior there was a 
heart gentle as a woman's, and you recognised in his 
words and in his manner the kindliness of nature 



10 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1846. which won the affection of all who came within its 
reach, and by its large and liberal manifestations made 
his name a very household word with thousands, who 
had never felt the pressure of his hand or stood in his 
living presence. But, with all this, though that name 
was in men's mouths and spoken in many languages, 
no unknown subaltern had a more lowly mind or a 
more unassuming deportment. 

Such was the man who now found himself the 
virtual sovereign of the empire of Runjeet Singh. 
The new protectorate, established at the end of 1846, 
gave to Henry Lawrence "unlimited authority," "to 
direct and control every department of the State." 
He. was to be assisted in this great work by an efficient 
establishment of subordinates, but it was no part of 
the design to confer upon them the executive manage- 
ment of affairs. The old officers of the Sikh Govern- 
ment were left to carry on the administration, guided 
and directed by their British allies. Under such a 
system corruption and oppression could no longer run 
riot over the face of the land. It was a protectorate 
for the many, not for the few; and for a while it 
seemed that all classes Avere pleased with the arrange- 
ment. Outwardly, indeed, it did not seem that feel- 
ings of resentment against the British Government 
were cherished by any persons but the Queen-Mother 
and her degraded paramour. 

IS4.7. And so, in the spring of 1847, the political horizon 

was almost unclouded. The Council of Regency, 
under the control of Henry La^vrence, seemed to be 
carrying on the government with a sincere desire to 
secure a successful result. Tranquillity had been re* 
stored ; confidence and order weT(3 fast returning. 
The Sikh soldiery appeared to be contented with their 



ELEMENTS OF DANGER. 11 

lot, and to be gradually acquiring habits of discipline 1S47. 
and obedience, under a system which rendered them 
dependent on the British officers for whatever most 
promoted their interests and contributed to their 
comforts. But it did not escape the sagacious mind 
of the Resident, that serene as was the aspect of 
affairs, and promising as were the indications of con- 
tinued repose, there were, beneath all this surface- 
calm, dangerous elements at work, waiting only for 
time and circumstance to call them into full activity. 
The memory of frequent defeat was still too fresh in 
the minds of the humbled Khalsa to suffer them to 
indulge in visions of at once re-acquiring their lost 
supremacy. But as time passed and the impression 
waxed fainter and fainter, it was well-nigh certain 
that the old hopes would revive, and that outbursts 
of desperate Asiatic zeal might be looked for in 
quarters where such paroxysms had long seemed to 
be necessary to the very existence of a lawless and 
tumultuous class. It is a trick of our self-love — of 
our national vanity — to make us too often delude 
ourselves with the belief that British supremacy must 
be welcome wheresoever it obtrudes itself. But Henry 
Lawrence did not deceive himself in this wise. He 
frankly admitted that, however benevolent our motives, 
and however conciliatory our demeanour, a British 
army could not garrison Lahore, and a British func- 
tionary supersede the Sikh Durbar, without exciting 
bitter discontents and perilous resentments. He saw 
around him, struggling for existence, so many high 
officers of the old Sikh armies, so many favourites of 
the old line of Wuzeers now cast adrift upon the world, 
without resources and without hope under the exist- 
ing system, that when he remembered their lawless 



12 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

IS47. habits, their headstrong folly, their desperate suicidal 
zeal, he could but wonder at the perfect peace which 
then pervaded the land. 

But whatsoever might be taking shape in the future, 
the present was a season of prosperity — a time of 
promise — and the best uses were made by the British 
functionaries of the continued calm. Interference in 
the civil administration of the country was exercised 
only when it could be turned to the very apparent 
advantage of the people. British authority and British 
integrity were then employed in the settlement of 
long-unsettled districts, and in the development of the 
resources of long-neglected tracts of country. The 
subordinate officers thus employed under the Resident 
were few, but they were men of no common ability 
and energy of character — soldiers such as Edwardes, 
Nicholson, Reynell Taylor, Lake, Lumsden, Becher, 
George Lawrence, and James Abbott ; civilians such 
as Vans Agnew and Arthur Cocks — men, for the 
most part, whose deeds will find ample record in these 
pages. They had unbounded confidence in their 
chief, and their chief had equal confidence in them. 
Acting, with but few exceptions, for the majority 
were soldiers, in a mixed civil and military character, 
they associated with all classes of the community ; 
and alike by their courage and their integrity they 
sustained the high character of the nation they re- 
presented. One common spirit of humanity seemed 
to animate the Governor-General, the Resident, and 
his Assistants. A well-aimed blow was struck at 
infanticide, at Suttee, and at the odious traffic in 
female slaves. In the agricultural districts, a system 
of enforced labour, which had pressed heavily on the 
ryots, was soon also in course of abolition. The weak 
were everywhere T>^oi^''«ted against the strong. An 



FIRST ADMINISTRATIVE EFFORTS. 13 

entire revision of the judicial and revenue systems of 1847. 
the country — if systems they can be called, where 
system there was none — was attempted, and with 
good success. New customs rules were prepared, by 
which the people were greatly gainers. Every legiti- 
mate means of increasing the revenue, and of con- 
trolling unnecessary expenditure, were resorted to, and 
large savings were eiFected at no loss of efficiency in 
any department of the State. The cultivators were en- 
couraged to sink wells, to irrigate their lands, and 
otherwise to increase the productiveness of the soil, 
alike to their own advantage and the profit of the 
State. And whilst everything was thus being done 
to advance the general prosperity of the people, and 
to ensure the popularity of British occupation among 
the industrial classes, the Army was propitiated by the 
introduction of new and improved systems of pay 
and pension, and taught to believe that what they 
had lost in opportunities of plunder, and in irregular 
largesses, had been more than made up to them by 
certainty and punctuality of payment, and the interest 
taken by the British officers in the general welfare of 
their class. 

As the year advanced, these favourable appearances 
rather improved than deteriorated. In June, the 
Resident reported that a large majority of the dis- 
banded soldiers had returned to the plough or to 
trade, and that the advantages of British influence to 
the cultivating classes were every day becoming more 
apparent. But still Lawrence clearly discerned the 
fact that although the spirit of insurrection was at 
rest in the Punjab, it was not yet dead. There were 
sparks flying about here and there, which, alighting 
on combustible materials, might speedily excite a 
blaze. " If every Sirdar and Sikh in the Punjab," he 



14 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1847. wrote, with the candour and good sense which are so 
conspicuous in all his communications, " were to avow 
himself satisfied with the humbled position of his 
country, it would be the extreme of infatuation to 
believe him, or to doubt for a moment that among 
the crowd who are loudest in our praise there are 
many who cannot forgive our victory, or even our 
forbearance, and who chafe at their own loss of power 
in exact proportion as they submit to ours." People 
were not wanting even then, in our camp, to talk with 
ominous head-shakings of the " Caubul Catastrophe," 
and to predict all sorts of massacres and misfortunes. 
But there was no parallel to be drawn between the 
two cases, for an overweening sense of security had 
not taken possession of the British functionaries at 
Lahore. They had not brought themselves to believe 
that the country was "" settled," or that British occu- 
pation was " popular" among the chiefs and people of 
the Punjab. With God's blessing they were doing 
their best to deserve success, but they knew well that 
they might some day see the ruin of their hopes, the 
failure of their experiments, and they were prepared, 
in the midst of prosperity, at any hour to confront 
disaster. 

Even then, fair as was the prospect before us, there 
was one great blot upon the landscape ; for whilst the 
restless nature of the Queen-Mother- was solacing itself 
with dark intrigues, there was a continual source of 
disquietude to disturb the mind of the Resident with 
apprehensions of probable outbreaks and seditions. 
She hated the British with a deadly hatred. They 
had deprived her of power. They had torn her lover 
from her arms. They were training her son to be- 
come a puppet in their hands. To foment hostility 
against them, .wheresoever there seemed to be any 



BANISHMENT OF THE MAHARANEE 15 

hope of successful revolt, and to devise a plot for the 1847. 
murder of the Resident, were among the cherished 
objects by which she sought to gratify her malice. 
But she could not thus labour in secret. Her schemes 
were detected, and it was determined to remove her 
fix)m Lahore. The place of banishment was Sheiko- 
poor, in a quiet part of the country, and in the midst 
of a Mussulman population. When the decision was 
communicated to her by her brother, she received it 
with apparent indifference. She was not one to give 
her enemies an advantage by confessing her wounds 
and bewailing her lot. She uttered no cry of pain, 
but said that she was ready for anything, and at once 
prepared for the journey. 

The autumn passed quietly away. But an im- 
portant change was impending. Lord Ilardinge was 
about to lay down the reins of government, and 
Colonel Lawrence to leave the Punjab for a time. 
The health of the latter had long been failing. He 
had tried in August and September the effect of the 
bracing hill air of Simlah. It had revived him for a 
while, but his medical attendants urged him to resort 
to the only remedy which could arrest the progress of 
disease ; and so, with extreme reluctance, he con- 
sented to quit his post, and to accompany Lord 
Hardinge to England. He went ; and Sir Frederick 
Currie, a public servant of approved talent and in- 
tegrity, who, in the capacity of Political Secretary, 
had accompanied the Govern or- General to the banks 
of the Sutlej, and who had been subsequently created 
a baronet and appointed a member of the Supreme 
Council of India, was nominated to act as Resident in 
his place. 

Meeting the stream of European revolution as they 
journeyed homewards, Hardinge and Lawrence came 



16 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1848. overland to England in the early spring of 1848. 
Brief space is allowed to me for comment ; but before 
I cease to write Lord Hardinge's name in connexion 
with Sikh politics and history, I must give expression, 
if orly in a single sentence, to the admiration mth 
whioli I regard his entire policy towards the Punjab. 
It was worthy of a Christian warrior : it was worthy 
of a Christian statesman. It is in no wise to be 
judged by results, still less by accidents not assign- 
able to errors inherent in the original design. What 
Hardin ge did, he did because it Avas right to do it. 
His forbearance under provocation, his moderation in 
the hour of victory foreshadowed the humanity of 
his subsequent measures. It was his one desire to 
render British connexion with the Punjab a blessing 
to the Sikhs, without destroying their national inde- 
pendence. The spirit of Christian philanthropy moved 
at his bidding over the whole face of the country — 
not the mere image of a specious benevolence dis- 
guising the designs of our ambition and the impulses 
of our greed, but an honest, hearty desire to do good 
without gain, to save an Empire, to reform a people, 
and to leave behind us the marks of a hand at once 
gentle and pow^erful — gentle to cherish and powerful 
only to sustain. 



conquest of The portfolio of the Indian Government now passed 
unjab. jj^^^ ^YiQ hands of Lord Dalhousie, a young statesman 
of high promise, who, in the divisions of party politics 
at home, had been ranged among the followers of Sir 
Robert Peel, and professed the newly- developed libe- 
ralism of that great parliamentary chief. Held in 
esteem as a man of moderate views, of considerable 
administrative ability, and more than common assi- 



LORD DALIIOUSIE. 17 

Julty 111 the public service, his brief career as an 1S4\ 
English statesman seemed to afford good hope that, in 
the great descriptive roll of Indian Viceroys, his name 
Avould be recorded as that of a ruler distinguished 
rather for the utility than for the brilliancy of his ad- 
ministration. And so, doubtless, it seemed to him- 
self. What India most wanted at that time was Peace. 
Left to her repose, even without external aid, she 
miirht soon have recovered from the effects of a suc- 
cession of wasting wars. But, cherished and fostered 
by an unambitious and enlightened ruler, there was 
good prospect of a future of unexampled prosperity — 
of great material and moral advancement — of that 
oft -promised, ever realisable, but still unrealised 
blessing, the " development of the resources of the 
country." The country wanted Railroads, and the 
people Education, and there was good hope that Dal- 
housie would give them both. 

When he looked beyond the frontier he saw that 
everything was quiet. The new year had dawned 
auspiciously on the Punjab. The attention of the 
British functionaries, ever earnest and active in well- 
doing — for the disciples of Henry Lawrence had 
caught much of the zealous humanity of their master 
— was mainly directed to the settlement of the Land 
Revenue and the improvement of the judicial system 
of the country. They had begun codifying in good 
earnest, and laws, civil and criminal, grew apace 
under their hands. In a state of things so satisfactory 
as this there was little to call for special remark, and 
the Governor-General, in his letters to the Home 
Government, contented himself with the simple ob- 
servation, that he "forwarded papers relating to the 
Punjab." But early in May intelligence had reached 
Uaicutta which impelled him to indite a more stirring 

G 



18 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

18.48. epistle. The Punjab was on the eve of another 
crisis. 

In September, 1844, Sawun Mull, the able and 
energetic Governor* of Mooltan, was shot to death by 
an assassin. He was succeeded by his son Moolraj, 
who also had earned for himself the reputation of a 
chief with just and enlightened views of government, 
and considerable administrative ability. But he had 
also a reputation very dangerous in that country : he 
was reputed to be very rich. Sawun Mull was be- 
lieved to have amassed immense treasures in Mool- 
tan ; and on the instalment of his son in the govern- 
ment, the Lahore Durbar demanded from him a suc- 
cession-duty f of a million of money. The exorbitant 
claim was not complied with ; but a compromise was 
effected, by Avhich Moolraj became bound to pay to 
Lahore less than a fifth of the required amount. And 
this sum would have been paid, but for the convul- 
sions which soon began to rend the countrj^, and the 
disasters which befel the Durbar. 

On the re-establishment of the Sikh Government 
the claim was renewed. It was intimated to the 
Dewan that if the stipulated eighteen lakhs, with cer- 
tain amounts due for arrears, were paid into the 
Lahore Treasury, he would be allowed to continue in 
charge of Mooltan ; but that if he demurred, troops 
Avould be sent to coerce him. He refused payment of 
the money, and troops were accordingly sent against 
him. Thus threatened, he besought the British Go- 
vernment to interfere in his favour, and consented to 
adjust the matter through the arbitration of the Resi- 
dent. The result was, that he went to Lahore in ihe 

♦ I have used the word most in- financial manager or revenue-farmer 

telligible to ordinary English readers, of the district, with tiie control of 

but it does not fitly represent tiie the internal administration. 
office held by the *' Dewan," who was -f Nuzzuraua. 



AFFAIRS OF MOOLTAN. 19 

autumn of 1846 ; promised to pay by instalments the isis. 
money claimed ; and was mulcted in a portion of the 
territories from which he had drawn his revenue. The 
remainder was farmed out to him for a term of three 
years. With this arrangement he appeared to be 
satisfied. He was anxious to obtain the guarantee of 
the British Government ; but his request was refused, 
and he returned to Mooltan mthout it. 

For the space of more than a year, Moolraj re- 
mained in peaceful occupation of the country which 
had been leased out to him. There was no attempt, 
on the part of the British functionaries, to interfere 
with the affairs of Mooltan. That territory was espe- 
cially exempted from the operation of the revenue 
settlement, which had taken effect elsewhere, and of 
the new customs regulations which had been esta- 
blished in other parts of the Punjab. But the com- 
pact which had been entered into with the Lahore 
Durbar did not sit easily Tipon him. He thought, or 
affected to think, that its terms were too rigorous; 
and accordingly, about the close of 1847, he repaired 
to the capital to seek some remission of them. He 
soon began intriguing with the Durbar for the reduc- 
tion of the stipulated rents ; and not coming to any 
satisfactory arrangement, intimated his wish to resign 
a charge which he had found so little profitable. He 
was told that his resignation, when formally tendered, 
would be accepted ; but was recommended to reflect 
upon the subject before finally coming to a determi- 
nation, which could not be subsequently revoked. 
Moolraj quitted Lahore ; and sent in first a somewhat 
vague, and afterwards a more distinct, resignation of 
his office ; and the Durbar at once appointed a suc- 
cessor. Sirdar Kan Singh, who was described as "a 
brave soldier and intelligent man," was nominated to 

c 2 



20 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALIIOUSIZ. 

'ia4S xhe Governorsliip of Mooltan, on a fixed annual 
salar}'. At the same time, Mr. Vans Agnew, a civil 
servant of the Company, and Lieutenant Anderson, 
of the Bombay army, were despatched to Mooltan 
Avith the new Governor, and an escort of iive hundred 
men, to receive charge of the place. On their arrival 
before the city there were no symptoms of any hostile 
intentions on the part of its occupants. Moolraj him- 
self waited on the British officers on the 18th of April, 
and was peremptorily called upon to give in his ac- 
counts. Disconcerted and annoyed, he quitted their 
presence, but next morning he met them with a 
calm aspect, and conducted them through the fort. 
Two companies of Goorkhas and some horsemen of 
the escort were placed in possession of one of the 
fort-gates. The crisis was now at hand. Moolraj 
formally gave over charge of the fort ; and as the 
party retired through the gate, the British officers 
were suddenly attacked and severely wounded. Mool- 
raj, who was riding with them at the time, offered no 
assistance, but, setting spurs to his horse, galloped 
off in the direction of his garden-house, whilst the 
wounded officers were carried to their own camp by 
Kan Singh and a party of the Goorkhas. 

In the course of the following day all the Mooltanee 
troops were in a state of open insurrection. Moolraj 
himself, who may not have been guilty in the first in- 
stance of an act of premeditated treachery, and who 
subsequently pleaded that he was coerced by liis 
troops, sent excuses to Vans Agnew, who, with the 
generous confidence of youth, acquitted him of all 
participation in the outrage. But he was soon heart 
and soul in the work ; and his emissaries plied their 
trade of corruption with unerring effect. Before 
nightfall, the commandant of the escort, ^vith all his 



MURDER OF AGNEW AND ANDERSON. 21 

men, went over to tlie enemy. The building in which 1848. 
the wounded officers lay was surrounded. A motley 
crew of ruffians — soldiers and citizens — men of all 
classes, young and old, moved by one common im- 
pulse, one great thirst of blood, came yelling and 
shouting around the abode of the doomed Ferin ghees. 
In they rushed, with a savage cr}^, and surrounded 
their victims. The wounded officers lay armed on 
their beds, and helpless, hopeless as they were, put 
on the bold front of intrepid Englishmen, and were 
heroes to the last. Having shaken hands, and bade 
each other a last farewell, they turned upon their 
assailants as best they could; but overpowered by 
numbers, they fell, declaring in the prophetic lan- 
guage of death, that thousands of their countrymen 
would come to avenge them. The slaughter tho- 
roughly accomplished, the two bodies were dragged 
out of the mosque, and barbarously mutilated by the 
murderers, with every indignity that malice could 
devise. 

Irretrievably committed in the eyes both of our coun- 
trymen and his own, Moolraj now saw that there was 
no going back ; he had entered, whether designedly 
or not, on a course which admitted of no pause, and 
left no time for reflection. All the dormant energies 
of his nature were now called into full activity. He 
took command of the insurgents — identified himself 
with their cause — bestowed largesses upon the men 
who had been most active in the assault upon the 
British officers, retained all who would take service 
with him, laid in stores, collected money, and ad- 
dressed letters to other chiefs urging them to resist- 
ance. He had never been looked upon by others — 
:iever regarded himself — as a man to become the leader 
of a great national movement ; but now circumstances 



'22 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

^^^-* had done for him what he would never willingly have 
shaped out for himself; so he bowed to fate, and be- 
came a hero. 

Thus was the second Sikh War commenced. Out- 
wardly, it was but the revolt of a local government — 
the rebellion of an officer of the Sikh State against 
the sovereign power of the land. But, rightly con- 
sidered, it was of far deeper significance. Whether 
Moolraj had been incited to resistance by the prompt- 
ings of a spirit far more bitter in its resentments, and 
more active in its malignity than his own, is not very 
apparent. But it is certain that when he raised the 
standard of rebellion at Mooltan, he did but antici- 
pate a movement for which the whole country was 
ripe. Already had ominous reports of ill-concealed 
disaffection come in from some of the outlying dis- 
tricts, and though the mortifying fact was very re- 
luctantly believed, it is certain that the state of things 
which Henry Lawrence had predicted was already a 
present reality, and that the Sikhs, chafing under the 
irritating interference of the European stranger, were 
about to make a common effort to expel him. A finer 
body of officers than those employed under the British 
Resident in the Punjab seldom laboured for the good 
of a people. That they worked, earnestly and assi- 
duously, animated by the purest spirit of Christian 
benevolence, is not to be doubted. But it was not 
in the nature of thinas that even if the thino- done 
had been palatable to the Sikhs, they would have 
reconciled themselves to the doers of it. Habituated 
to rule in all parts of the world, and to interfere in 
the affairs of people of all colours and creeds, Eng- 
lishmen are slow to familiarise themselves with the 
idea of the too probable unpopularity of their inter- 
ference They think that if they mean well tliey 
must secure confidence. They do not consider that 



FIRST ADMINISTRATIVE EFFORTS. 23 

our beneficent ways may not be more in accordance 18^8, 
with the national taste than our round hats and stiff 
neckcloths ; and that even if they were, alien inter- 
ference must in itself be utterly distasteful to them. 
It is not to be doubted, I say, that the young Eng- 
lishmen first employed in the Punjab laboured earn- 
estly for the good of the people ; but their very pre- 
sence was a sore in the flesh of the nation, and if they 
had been endowed with superhuman wisdom and 
angelic benevolence, it would have made no differ- 
ence in the sum total of popular discontent. 

But it is probable that some mistakes were com- 
mitted — the inevitable growth of benevolent igno- 
rance and energetic inexperience — at the outset of 
our career as Punjabee administrators. The inter- 
ference appears to have been greater than was con- 
templated in the original design of the Second Pro- 
tectorate. At that time the God Terminus was held 
by many of our administrators in especial veneration. 
The Theodolite, the Reconnoitring Compass, and the 
Measuring Chain were the great emblems of British 
rule. And now these mysterious instruments began 
to make their appearance in the Punjab. We were 
taking sights and measuring angles on the outskirts 
of civilisation ; and neither the chiefs nor the people 
could readily persuade themselves that we were 
doing all this for their good ; there was an appear- 
ance in it of ulterior design. And, as I have 
hinted, the agents employed were sometimes wholly 
inexperienced in business of this kind. *' My pre- 
sent role^' wrote a young ensign* of two years' 
standing in the service, whose later exploits will 
be recorded in these pages, "is to survey a part 

* W. R. Hodson (" Ilodson of the fate of Anderson at Mooltan, for 
Hodson's Horse"), Januar}-, 1848. he had been selected in the first in» 
This young officer narrowly escaped stance to accompany Vans Agnew. 



24: THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALIIOUSIE. 

1548. of the country lying along the left bank of the 
Ravee and below the hills, and I am daily and all 
day at work with compasses and chain, pen and 
pencil, following streams, diving into valleys, bur- 
ro Aving into hills, to complete my work. I need 
hardly remark, that having never attempted anything 
of the kind, it is bothering at iirst. I should not be 
surprised any day to be told to build a ship, compose 
a code of laws, or hold assizes. In fact, 'tis the way 
in India ; every one has to teach himself his work, 
and to do it at the same time." Training of this kind 
has made the finest race of officers that the world has 
ever seen. But the novitiate of these men may have 
teemed with blunders fatal to the people among whom 
they were sent, in all the self-confidence of youth, to 
learn their diversities of work. As they advance in 
years, and every year know better how difficult a 
thing it is to administer the afi'airs of a foreign people, 
such public servants often shudder to think of the 
errors committed, of the wrong done, when they 
served their apprenticeship in government without a 
master, and taught themselves at the expense of 
thousands. The most experienced administrators in 
the present case might have failed from the want of 
a right understanding of the temper of the people. 
But it was the necessity of our position that some 
who were set over the officers of the Sikh Govern- 
ment knew little of the people and little of adminis- 
tration. They were able, indefatigable, and con- 
scientious. They erred only because they saw too 
much and did too much, and had not come to under- 
stand the wise policy of shutting their eyes and 
leaving alone. 

And so, although the rebellion of jMoolraj was 
at first only a local outbreak, and the British autho- 
rities were well disposed to regard it as a movement 



EVILS OF DELAY. 25 

against the Sikh Government, not as an oatrage espe- 1818. 
cially directed against ourselves, that fiction could 
not be long maintained — for every day it became more 
and more apparent that the whole country was ripe for 
another war with the intruding Feringhee. The Dur- 
bar officers did not hesitate to express their conviction 
that to send Sikh troops to act against Moolraj would 
only be to swell the number of his adherents. To 
have despatched with them a small English force 
would have been to risk its safety and precipitate 
the conflict. An overwhelming display of force, on 
the part of the British Government, might have 
crushed the rebellion at Mooltan and retarded the 
general rising of the country. But the season was 
far advanced ; the responsibility was a great one. 
The Commander-in-Chief of the British army in India 
was not far distant. Currie, therefore, though his 
own judgment inclined to the commencement of im- 
mediate hostilities, rightly referred the momentous 
question to the military chief. Lord Gough was 
JT® against immediate action ; and the head of the In- 
dian Government unreservedly endorsed the de- 
cision. 

The remnant of the old Khalsa army eagerly watched 
the result, and were not slow to attribute our in- 
activity, at such a moment, to hesitation — to fear — 
to paralysis. I am not writing a military history of 
the Second Sikh War, and the question now suggested 
is one which I am not called upon to discuss. But I 
think that promptitude of action is often of more im- 
portance than completeness of preparation, and that 
to shoAv ourselves confident of success is in most cases 
to attain it. The British power in India cannot 
afford to be quiescent under insult and outrage. De- 
lay is held to be a sign of weakness. It encourages 
enmity and confirms vacillation. It is a disaster in 



26 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1848. itself — more serious, often, than any that can arise 
from insufficient preparation, and that great bugbear 
the inclemency of the season. On the other hand, 
it is not to be forgotten that to despise our enemies is 
a common national mistake, and that sometimes it 
has been a fatal one. We have brought calamities 
on ourselves by our rashness as we have by our 
Indecision. The History of India teems with ex- 
amples of both results ; the most profitable lesson to 
be learnt from which is, that, however wise we may 
be after the event, criticism in such a case ought to 
be diffident and forbearing. 

But whilst the Commander-in-Chief, in the cool 
mountain air of Simlah, was deciding on the impossi- 
bility of commencing military operations, a young 
lieutenant of the Bengal army, who had been engaged 
in the Revenue settlement of the country about Bun- 
noo, was marching down upon Mooltan with a small 
body of troops, to render assistance to his brother- 
officers in their perilous position, and to support the 
authority of the Lahore Durbar. A letter from 
Vans Agnew, dictated by the Avounded man, had pro- 
videntially fallen into his hands. He saw at once the 
emergency of the case ; he never hesitated ; but aban- 
doning all other considerations, improvised the best 
force that could be got together, and, with fifteen 
hundred men and two pieces of artillery, marched 
forth in all the eager confidence of youth, hoping 
that it might be his privilege to rescue his country- 
men from the danger that beset them. 

The name of this young officer was Herbert Ed- 
wardes. A native of Frodley, in Shropshire, the son 
of a country clergyman, educated at King's College, 
London, he had entered the Company's service as a 
cadet of infantry, at an age somewhat more advanced 



HERBERT EDWARBES. .?7 

than that which sees the initiation into military life lS4i 
of the majority of young ofiicers. But at an age 
much earlier than that which commonly places them 
in possession of the most superficial knowledge of the 
history and politics of the East, young Edwardes had 
acquired a stock of information, and a capacity for 
judging rightly of passing events, which would have 
done no discredit to a veteran soldier and diplomatist, 
He had served but a few years, when his name be- 
came familiar to English readers throughout the Pre- 
sidency to which he belonged, as one of the ablest 
anonymous writers in the country. His literary 
talents, like his military qualities, were of a bold, 
earnest, impulsive character. Whatever he did, he 
did rapidly and well. He was precisely the kind of 
man to attract the attention and retain the favour of 
such an officer as Henry Lawrence, who, with the 
same quiet love of literature, combined a keen appre- 
ciation of that energy and fire of character which 
shrink from no responsibility, and are ever seeking to 
find an outlet in dashing exploits. In one of the 
earliest and most striking scenes of the Punjabee 
drama, Edwardes had acted a distinguished part. 
When the insurrection broke out in Cashmere, he 
Avas despatched to Jummoo, to awaken Gholab Singh 
to a sense of his duty in that conjuncture ; and there 
are few more memorable and impressive incidents in 
Sikh history than that which exhibited a handful of 
British officers controlling the movements of large 
bodies of foreign troops, — the very men, and under 
the very leaders, who, so short a time before, had 
contested with us on the banks of the Sutlej the 
sovereignty of Hindostan. 

On the reconstruction of the Sikh Government, 
after the deposition of Lai Singh, Herbert Edwardes 



28 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALIIOUSIE. 

1848. was one of the officers selected to superintend tKe 
internal administration of the country ; and he had just 
completed the Revenue settlement of Bunnoo, when 
the startling intelligence of the Mooltanee outbreak 
reached his camp. He marched at once to succour 
his brother-officers ; crossed the Indus, and took pos- 
session of Leia, the chief city in the Sindh Saugor 
Doab. But tidings by this time had reached him of 
the melancholy fate of Agnew and Anderson, and 
there was then no profit in the immediate movement 
on Mooltan to compensate lor its certain danger. But 
the demonstration still had its uses. It was something 
that there was a force in the field with a British officer 
at the head of it to assert the cause of order and au- 
thority in the name of the Maharajah of the Punjab. 
Such a force might, for a time at least, hold rebellion 
in check in that part of the country. But Edwardes 
dreamt of higher service than this. To the south of 
Mooltan, some fifty miles, lies Bahwulpore, in the 
chief of which place we believed that we had a 
staunch ally. In the name of the British Government, 
Edwardes called upon him to move an auxiliary force 
upon Mooltan ; and he had little doubt that, after 
forming a junction with these troops, he could 
capture the rebel stronghold. The confidence of the 
young soldier, stimulated by a victory which he 
gained over a large body of rebels on the great anni- 
versary of Waterloo, saw no obstacle to this enterprise 
which could not be overcome if the Resident would 
only send him a few heavy guns and mortars, and 
Major Napier, of the Engineers, to direct the opera- 
tions of the siege. He knew the worth of such a man 
in such a conjuncture, and every year that has since 
passed has made him prouder of the }^outhful forecast 
which he then evinced. 



EDWARDES AT MOOLTAN. 29 

The Baliwulpore troops were sent, the junction was 134S. 
formed, and the forces marched down upon Mooltan. 
Phicing himself at the head of a considerable body of 
men, the rebel chief went out to give them battle, but 
was beaten by Edwardes, aided by Van Cortlandt, a 
European officer in Sikh employ, Avho has since done 
good service to the British Government, and Edward 
Lake, a gallant young officer of Bengal Engineers, 
directing the Bahwulpore column, who has abun- 
dantly fulfilled, on the same theatre of action, the 
high promise of his youth. But much as irregular 
levies, so led, might do in the open field, they were 
powerless against the walls of Mooltan. Again, there- 
fore, Edwardes urged upon the Resident the ex- 
pediency of strengthening his hands, especially in re- 
spect of the ordnance branches of the service. Only 
send a siege train, some Sappers and Miners, with 
Robert Napier to direct the siege, and — this time, for 
the difficulties of the work had assumed larger pro- 
portions in his eyes — a few regular regiments, under 
a young brigadier, and we shall "close," he said, 
" Moolraj's accounts in a fortnight, and obviate the 
necessity of assembling fifty thousand men in October." 

In the early part of July this requisition was re- 
ceived at Lahore. The interval which had elapsed, 
since the disastrous tidings of the rebellion of Moolraj 
had reached the Residency, had not been an unevent- 
ful one at the capital. Early in May, discovery was 
made of an attempt to corrupt the fidelity of our 
British Sepoys. The first intimation of the plot was 
received from some troopers of the 7th Irregular 
Cavalry, who communicated the circumstance to their 
commanding officer. The principal conspirators were 
one Kan Singh, an unemployed general of the Sikh 
army, and Gunga Ram, the confidential Vakeel of the 



30 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

IS 18. Maharanee. These men, and two others, were seized, 
tried, and convicted. The two chief conspirators 
were publicly hanged, and their less guilty associates 
transported. That they were instruments of the 
Maharanee was sufficiently proved. The conspirators 
acknowledged that she was the prime instigator of the 
treacherous attempt, and her letters were found in 
their possession. With this knowledge, it could no 
longer be a question with the Resident as to what 
course it behoved him to adopt. The mother of the 
Maharajah and the widow of Ruiijeet Singh could no 
longer be suffered to dwell among the Sikhs. She had 
already been removed from Lahore to Sheikopoor. 
It now became necessary to remove her from the 
Punjab. Accordingly, certain accredited agents of 
the Lahore Durbar, accompanied by two British 
officers, Captain Lumsden and Lieutenant Hodson, 
were despatched to Sheikopoor, with a mandate 
under the seal of the Maharajah, directing her re- 
moval from that place. Without offering any resist- 
ance, or expressing any dissatisfaction, she placed her- 
self under the charge of the deputation ; and, when 
it became clear to her that she was on her way to the 
British frontier, she desired — not improbably Avith 
that blended irony and bravado which she so well 
knew how to employ — that her thanks might be con- 
veyed to the Resident for removing her to the Com- 
pany's dominions, out of the reach of the enemies 
who would destroy her. With a considerable retinue 
of female attendants, she was conveyed to Ferozepore, 
and eventually to Benares, where she was placed under 
the charge of Major George Macgregor, an Artillery 
officer of high personal character and great diplomatic 
experience, who had well sustained in the Punjab the 
brilliant reputation which he had earned at Jellalabad 



THE RISING OF THE NATIOX. 31 

Such was the apparent growth visible at the British 1S43, 
Residency, recognised in our State-papers, of those 
three months in the Punjab. But in the hands of a 
Sikh historian these incidents would form but a 
small part of the national annals, for all over the 
country the great chiefs were actively maturing the 
plan of their emancipation, calling upon all true 
Sikhs, in the name of the great Founder of their 
Faith, to exterminate the Christian usurpers, and 
even those nearest to the throne were among the 
arch-promoters of the movement. The daughter of 
Chuttur Singh and the sister of Shere Singh was 
the betrothed wife of the Maharajah ; but these 
Sirdars, though anxious to veil their designs until 
the whole country was ripe for a simultaneous rising, 
were intriguing and plotting for our overthrow. The 
former was in the Hazareh, where his fidelity had 
been for some time suspected by James Abbott — 
another officer of the Bengal Artillery, friend and 
comrade of Henry Lawrence, who had been set- 
tling that part of the country — one of those men 
whose lot in life it is never to be believed, never 
to be appreciated, never to be rewarded ; of the 
true salt of the earth, but of an unrecognised 
savour ; chivalrous, heroic, but somehow or other 
never thoroughly emerging from the shade. He was 
not one to estimate highly the force of the maxim 
that " speech is silver, silence is gold ;" and his sus- 
picions are said not to have been acceptable at Lahore. 
But though it may be good to suspect, it is doubtless 
good, also, not to appear to suspect. And if Currie, 
in that conjuncture, had betrayed a want of confi- 
dence in the Sikh Sirdars, he would have precipitated 
the collision which it was sound policy to retard. So, 
whatever may have been his genuine convictions, he 



22 TUE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

iHi, still appeared to trust the chiefs of the Regency ; a^id 
Shere Singh, with a strong body of Sikh troops, wis 
sent down to Mooltan. It was wise to nnaintain, as 
long as possible, the semblance of the authority of 
the Sikh Durbar — wise to keep up the show of sup- 
pressing a rebellion by the hand of the native Go- 
vernment. To send down that undeveloped traitor to 
the great centre of revolt may have been a hazardous 
experiment, but it was hazardous also to keep him 
where he was ; and the master-passion of the Sikh 
soldiery for plunder might have kept his battalions 
nominally on the side of authority, until they had 
glutted themselves with the spoils of Mooltan, and pre- 
parations had, meanwhile, been made in the British 
provinces for the commencement of military operations 
on a scale befitting the occasion. But the repeated re- 
quisitions of Edwardes for British aid at last wrought 
upon the Resident, and Currie determined to send a 
force to Mooltan, with a siege-train for the reduction 
of the fortress. In General Samson Whish, of the 
Artillery, under whose command the force was de- 
spatched, there was not literally what Edwardes had 
asked for — " a young brigadier" — but there was a 
general officer of unwonted youthfulness of aspect 
and activity of body, who could sit a horse well, 
could ride any distance at a stretch, and was gene- 
rally esteemed to be one of the best artillery officers 
in the service. This forward movement w^as not 
countenanced in high places. The Commander-in- 
Chief shook his head. The Governor-General shook 
his head. But the Resident had ordered it, and it 
could not be countermanded, without encourao^inir a 
belief that there w^as a want of unanimity in British 
councils. 

So the besieging force inarched upon Mooltan, .ard 



THE DEFECTION OF SIIERE SINGH. 25 

arrived before the city in higli health and excellent 184a. 
spirits. On the 5th of September, in the name of the 
Maharajah and Queen Victoria, the British General 
summoned, the garrison to surrender. No answer was 
returned to the summons, and. the siege commenced. 
But on the 14fe^ when our guns were within breach- 
ing distance of the walls of the town, Whish, to his 
bitter mortification, was compelled to abandon the 
siege. The Sikh force under Shere Singh had gone 
over to the enemy. 

This event had long been matter of anxious specu- 
lation in the British camp, and now took no one by 
surprise. It was known that the hearts of the soldiery 
were with Moolraj ; but there was something of a 
more doubtful character in the conduct of the Rajah 
himself, who had on more than one occasion testified 
his zeal and loyalty by voluntary acts of service in 
our cause. In his ow^n camp, the Khalsa troops said 
contemptuously, that he was a Mussulman. With 
Edwardes he was outwardly on the best possible 
terms ; spoke freely of the conduct of his father, 
Chuttur Singh ; declared that he washed his hands 
of all the old man's rebellious projects ; and candidly 
avowed his mistrust of the Sikh troops. But in all 
this he was playing a part. He had written to his 
brother to say that he intended to go over to the 
enemy on that very 14th of September, and he kept 
his word to the letter. On the morning of that day, 
the whole Durbar force sought entrance into the 
city. Doubtful of the real nature of the movement, 
Moolraj at first refused them admittance ; but soon 
satisfied of their intentions, he opened his gates ; the 
long dreaded and fatal junction was efifected ; and 
th^. British General was under the mortifying neces- 
sity of raising the siege of Mooltan. 



Si THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHQUSIE. 

yns. The whole truth was now visible before the world. 

It was impossible any longer to maintain the fiction 
of a local rebellion, to pretend that the Lahore Go- 
vernment, assisted by British troops, was endeavour- 
ing to coerce a refractory subject. The very heads 
of that Government were in open hostility to the 
British, raising the standard of nationality in the 
name of the Maharajah. It was obvious that the 
war now about to be waged, was between the Britisli 
and the Sikhs. Some hope was at one time to be 
drawn from the fact of long-standing feuds among 
the different Sikh families. Then there was the not 
unreasonable conviction that the Mahomedan popu- 
lation of the Punjab might easily be kept in a state 
of enmity with the Sikhs. But these assurances soon 
melted away. Hostile families and hostile religions 
were content to unite for the nonce against the 
Feringhees; and the Commander-in-Chief, as the 
cold weather approached, was gratified by finding 
that there had been no premature birth of victory — 
that the work was yet to be done — and that an 
army of twenty thousand men, under his personal 
command, was required to take the field. 

And from that time Mooltan ceased to be the focus 
of rebellion and the head-quarters of the war. In 
the Hazareh country Chuttur Singh had thrown off 
all vestments of disguise, and plunged boldly into the 
troubled waters that lay before him. The thoughts 
of Shere Singh soon began to turn towards that 
quarter — indeed, such had been his desire from the 
first — and before the second week of October had 
passed away, he had marched out of Mooltan to 
join his father. The whole country was now rising 
against us. Having used the name of the Maharajah, 
the Sikh leaders were eager to possess themselves of 



MOVEMENTS OF THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL. 35 

the person of tlie boy- King, and but for the vigilance 1811 
of the Resident they would have achieved an object 
which would have added a new element of strength 
to the national cause. Duleep Singh remained in our 
hands virtually a prisoner at Lahore. 

All this time the Govern or- Gen era! was at Cal- 
cutta, watching from a distance the progress of 
events, and betraying no eagerness to seize a favour- 
able opportunity for the conquest of the Punjab. In- 
deed, it has been imputed to him, as a grave political 
error, that he did not at an earlier period make due 
preparation for the inevitable war. But, it would seem 
that in the summer of 1848, his desire was to recog- 
nise as long as possible only internal rebellion in the 
Sikh country — to see, not the rising of a nation 
against a foreign intruder, but the revolt of a few un- 
loyal chiefs against their own lawful sovereign. But 
with the first breath of the cool season there came a 
truer conception of the crisis, and Lord Dalhousie pre- 
pared himself for the conflict. " I have wished for 
peace," he said, at a public entertainment, early in 
October; "I have longed for it; I have striven for 
it But if the enemies of India determine to have 
war, war they shall have, and on my word they shall 
have it with a vengeance." A few days afterwards 
he turned his back upon Calcutta, and set his face 
towards the north-west. All the energies of his 
mind were then given to the prosecution of the war. 

The British army destined for the re-conquest of 
the Punjab assembled at Ferozepore, and crossed the 
Sutlej in difl'erent detachments. On the 13th of 
November the head-quarters reached Lahore. At 
that time it could hardly be said that British influ- 
ence extended a rood beyond the Residency walls. 
In all parts of the country the Sikhs had risen against 

d2 



36 THE ADMINISirwATlOii OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1S48. the great reproacli of the English Occupation. Id 
many outlying places, on the confines of civilisa- 
tion, our English officers were holding out. in th( 
face of every conceivable difficulty and danger, with 
constancy and resolution most chivalrous, most 
heroic, hoping only to maintain, by their own per- 
sonal gallantry, the character of the nation they re- 
presented. There was, indeed, nothing more to be 
done. We had ceased to be regarded as allies. S(; 
eager and so general was the desire to expel thr 
intruding Feringhee, that the followers of Govincl 
sank for a time all feelings of national and religion: i 
animosity against their Afghan neighbours, and in- 
voked Mahomedan aid from the regions beyond the 
passes of the Khyber. 

On the 21st of November, Lord Gough joined the 
army on the left bank of the Sutlej. A veteran com- 
mander, who within the space of a few years ha<l 
fought more battles in different parts of the world 
than were crowded into the lives of most living war- 
riors — a general whose uniform good fortune had 
glossed over his want of forecast and science, and 
whose repeated successes had silenced criticism — he 
was now about to engage in military operations greater 
than those of his antecedent campaigns, with, perhaps, 
even less knowledge of the country and less considera- 
tion of the probable contingencies of the war. But all 
men had confidence in him. India had been won by 
a series of military mistakes that would have dis- 
graced an ensign before the examination period, and, 
perhaps, would not have been won at all if we had 
infused into our operations more of the pedantry of 
military science. He was a soldier, and all who fougli L 
under him honoured his grey hairs, and loved him 
for his manly bearing, his fine frank character, and 



BAMNUGGUR. 37 

even for the impetuosity which so often entangled 
his legions in difficulties, and enhanced the cost of 
the victories he gained. 

The arrival of the Commander-in-Chief was the 
sio^nal for the immediate commencement of hostilities. 
The force then under his personal command consisted 
of upwards of twenty thousand men, with nearly a 
hundred pieces of artillery, and Gough was in no 
temper for delay. On the day after his arrival in 
camp was fought the battle of Ramnuggur, the first 
of those disastrous successes which have given so 
gloomy a character to the campaign. The enemy 
had a strong masked battery on the other side of the 
river, and very cleverly contrived to draw the British 
troops into an ambuscade. The operations of the 
Commander-in-Chief, commenced with the object of 
driving a party of the rebels, who were on his side of 
the Chenab, across the river, had the effect of bring- 
ing his cavalry and artillery within reach of these con- 
cealed guns ; and twenty-eight pieces of ordnance 
opened upon our advancing columns. The cavalry 
were ordered to move forward to the attack as soon 
as an opportunity presented itself. They found an 
opportunity, and charged a large body of the enemy, 
the Sikh batteries pouring in their deadly showers all 
the while. Many fell under the fire of the guns, many 
under the sabre-cuts of the Sikh swordsmen, many 
under the withering fire of a body of matchlockmen, 
who, taking advantage of the nature of the ground, 
harassed our horsemen sorely. Nothing was gained 
by our " victory;" but we lost many brave and some 
good soldiers ; and our troops returned to camp 
weary and dispirited, asking what end they had ac- 
complished, and sighing over the ^ost. 

Some days afterwards a force ^^^der General Thack- 



38 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1848. well was sent out to cross the river, but being scantily 
supplied with information, and grievously hampered 
by instructions, it succeeded only in losing a few men 
and killing several of the enemy. No great object 
was gained, but great opportunities were sacrificed. 
The Commander-in-Chief pompously declared that 
" it had pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe to the 
British arms the most successful issue to the extensive 
combinations rendered necessary for the purpose of 
effecting the passage of the Chenab, the defeat and 
dispersion of the Sikh force under the insurgent 
Rajah Shere Singh and the numerous Sikh Sirdars 
who had the temerity to set at defiance the British 
power." These " events, so fraught with importance," 
were to "tend to most momentous results." The re- 
sults were, that the field of battle was shifted from 
the banks of the Chenab to the banks of the Jhelum. 
The enemy, who might have been taken in rear, and 
whose batteries might have been seized, if Thackwell 
had been free to carry Out the most obvious tactics, 
escaped with all their guns ; and on the 1 3th of 
January bore bloody witness to the little they had 
suffered, by fighting one of the greatest and most 
sanguinary battles in the whole chronicle of Indian 
warfare. 

By this time Henry Lawrence had returned to the 
Punjab. The news of the outbreak at Mooltan had 
reached him in England, whilst still in broken health, 
and had raised within him an incontrollable desire, 
at any hazard, to return to his post. He had won 
his spurs, and he was eager to prove that he was 
Avorthy of them, even at the risk of life itself. It has 
been said that he ought not to have quitted the Pun- 
jab, and that if he had been at Lahore in the spring 
of 1848, the war would not then have been preci- 



RETURN OiF HENRY LAWRENCE. 39 

pitated by tlie rebellion of Moolraj, for ^' any one but 1848. 
a civilian would have foreseen that to send Vans 
Agnew and Anderson down to Mooltan at the time 
and in the manner selected was almost sure to pro- 
dace an ebullition of feeling and violence." But if Calcuttu 
Lawrence had not gone to England at that time, he 
would, in all human probability, have died ; and 
though he might not have sent the same men to 
Mooltan, he would have sent a mission there for the 
same purpose. " I meant to have sent Arthur Cocks," 
was his remark to the present writer, when the dis- 
astrous news reached us in London. He saw at once 
that the Mooltanee revolt was but the prelude to a 
great national outbreak, and though his friends 
trembled for his safety and counselled delay, his 
strong sense of duty to the State overruled all per- 
sonal considerations, and so he carried back his shat- 
tered frame and his inexhaustible energies to the 
scene of the coming conflict. Leaving London at 
the end of October, he reached Bombay early in De- 
cember, and pushing up the Lidus with characteristic 
rapidity of movement, joined the camp of General 
Whish, before the walls of Mooltan, two days after 
the great festival of Christmas. 

On the second day of the new year, Whish, rein- 1819. 
forced from Bombay, carried the city of Mooltan. 
Long and obstinate had been the resistance of the be- 
sieged ; and now that our storming columns entered 
tlie breach, the garrison still, at the bayonet's point, 
showed the stufl* of which they were made. Frightful 
had been the carnage during the siege. Heaps of 
mangled bodies about the battered town bore ghastly 
witness to the terrible effects of the British ordnance. 
But many yet stood to be shot down or bayoneted in 
the streets ; and the work of the besieging force was 



40 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1 849. yet far from its close. Moolraj was in the citadel wltli 
some thousands of his best fighting-men ; and the 
fort guns were plied as vigorously as before the cap- 
ture of the town. The strength of this formidable 
fortress seemed to laugh our breaching batteries to 
scorn. Mining operations were, therefore, com- 
menced; but carried on, as they were, beneath a 
constant discharge from our mortars, it seemed little 
likely that the enemy would wait to test the skill of 
the engineers. The terrible shelling to which the 
fortress was exposed dismayed the pent-up garrison. 
By the 21st of January they were reduced to the last 
extremity. Moolraj vainly endeavoured to rally his 
followers. Their spirit was broken. There was no- 
thing left for them but to make a desperate sally and 
cut their way through the besiegers, or to surren- 
der at once. The nobler alternative was rejected. 
Asking only for his own life and the honour of his 
women, Moolraj tendered on that day his submission 
to the British General. Whish refused to guarantee 
the first, but promised to protect the women ; and 
on the following morning the garrison marched out 
of Mooltan, and Dewan Moolraj threw himself upon 
the mercy of the British Government. 

Meanwhile, Henry Lawrence, having witnessed the 
fall of the city of Mooltan, hastened upwards to Feroze- 
pore, conveyed to Lord Dalhousie the first welcome 
tidings of that event, took counsel with the Governor- 
General, made himself master of the great man's 
views, then hurried on to Lahore, communicated with 
the Resident, and on the same evening pushed on to 
the camp of the Commander-in-Chief, which he reached 
on the night of the 10th of January. He was there 
in no recognised ofiicial position, for Currie's tenure of 
office did not expire until the beginning of the ensuing 



CHILLIANWALLAH. 41 

: tiontli ; but he was ready for any kind of service, and 1849. 
he placed himself at Lord Gough's disposal, as an 
iionorary aide-de-camp, or any other subordinate 
officer, in the fine army which was now stretching out 
before him. 

Three days after Lawrence's arrival in camp the 
battle of Chillianwallah was fought. The time had 
arrived when a far less impetuous general than Gough 
might have deemed it incumbent on him to force the 
Sikh army into a general action. It is true that the 
final reduction of the fortress of Mooltan would have 
liberated a large portion of Whish's column, and 
greatly have added to the strength of the British 
army on the banks of the Jhelum. But the Sikh 
Sirdars, on this very account, were eager to begin the 
battle, and would not have suffered us to wait for our 
reinforcements. Gough already had a noble force 
under him, equal to any service. It was panting for 
action. There had been a lull of more than a 
month's duration, and all through India there was a 
feeling of impatience at the protracted delay. Gough, 
therefore, prepared for action. Ascertaining the 
nature of the country occupied by the Sikh army, 
and the position of their troops, he planned his attack 
upon sound tactical principles, and fully instructed 
his generals in the several parts which they were 
called upon to play. On the afternoon of the 13th 
everything was ready, and the battle was to have been 
commenced early on the foUoAving morning. But, 
unwilling to give the British General the long hours 
of the morrow's light, from daybreak to sunset, that 
he wanted, to fight his battle according to approved 
principles of modern warfare, the Sikh leaders, when 
the day was far spent, determined, if possible, to 
aggravate him into an immediate encounter. They 



42 THE iy)MmiSTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1849. knew their man. So they advanced a few guns, and 
sent some round-shot booming in the direction of the 
British camp. The bait took. The warm Hibernian 
temperament of the British leader could not brook the 
insult. He moved up his heavy guns, responded wath 
some chance shots at the invisible enemy, and then, 
there being little of the day left for his operations, 
gave the command for his line to advance. 

The story of what followed has been often told, and 
it is not so gratifying a page of history that I need 
care to repeat it. Night closed upon the fearful 
carnage of that terrible engagement, and both armies 
claimed the victory. What it cost us is written in 
the Gazette. Never was an official bulletin received 
in England with a wilder outcry of pain and passion. 
The past services, the intrepid personal courage, the 
open honest character, the many noble qualities of 
the veteran Commander were forgotten in that burst 
of popular indignation, and hundreds of English 
families turned from the angry past to the fearful 
future, and trembled as they thought that the crown- 
ing action with that formidable enemy had yet to be 
fought by a General so rash, so headstrong, and so 
incompetent. 

In the high places of Government there was uni- 
versal discomposure, and the greatest military au- 
thority in the country shook his head with an 
ominous gesture of reproach. Then arose a wild 
cry for Napier. The conqueror of the Beloochees was 
sent out in hot haste to India to repair the mischief 
that had been done by Gough, and to finish off the 
war with the Sikhs in a proper workmanlike manner. 
But the hottest haste could not wholly annihilate time 
and space, and though this sudden supersession of the 
brave old chief, who had fought so many battles and 



THE APGHAN ALLIANCE. . 43 

WOT) SO many victories, miglit shame his grey hairs, it 1848 
could not bring the war to a more rapid or a more 
honourable close. The carnage of Chillianwallah 
shook for a time the confidence of the army in their 
chief, but it did not shake the courage of our fighting- 
men, or destroy their inherent capacity for conquest. 
It was a lesson, too, that must have scored itself into 
the very heart of the British chief, and made him a 
sadder man and a wiser commander. The errors of 
the 13th of January were to be atoned for by a 
victory which any leader might contemplate with 
pride, and any nation with gratitude. Scarcely had 
his appointed successor turned his back upon England 
when Gough fought another great battle, which 
neither Napier, nor Wellington himself, who talked of 
going in his place, could have surpassed in vigour 
of execution or completeness of efi*ect. 

Anxiously was intelligence of the surrender of 
Moolraj looked for in the camp of the Commander- 
in-Chief Since that disastrous action at Chillian- 
wallah, Gough had been entrenching his position, and 
waiting reinforcements from Mooltan. The surrender 
of that fortress set free some twelve thousand men, 
and Whish, with unlooked-for rapidity, marched to 
the banks of the Jhelum to swell the ranks of the 
grand army. A great crisis was now approaching. 
Thrice had the British and Sikh forces met each other 
on the banks of those classical rivers which had seen 
the triumphs of the Macedonian — thrice had they 
met each other only to leave the issue of the contest 
yet undecided. A great battle was now about to be 
fought — one difi*ering from all that had yet been 
fought since the Sikhs first crossed the Sutlej, for a 
strange but not unlooked-for spectacle was about to 
present itself — Sikhs and Afghans, those old heredi- 



44 , THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1849. tary enemies, fighting side by side against a common 
foe. The Sikh Sirdars, I have said, had been in- 
triguing to secure the assistance of the Ameer of 
Cabool. For some time there appeared little like- 
lihood that old Dost Mahomed, whose experience 
ought to have brought wisdom with it, would lend 
himself to a cause which, in spite of temporary suc- 
cesses, was so sure to prove hopeless in the end. But 
neither years, nor experience, nor adversity had 
taught him to profit by the lessons he had learned. 
The desire of repossessing himself of Peshawur was 
the madness of a life. The bait was thrown out to 
him, and he could not resist it. He came through 
the Khybur with an Afghan force, marched upon the 
Indus, and threatened Attock, which fell at his ap- 
proach ; despatched one of his sons to the camp of 
Shere Singh, and sent a body of Douranee troops to 
fight against his old Feringhee enemy, who for years 
had been the arbiter of his fate. How deplorable an 
act of senile fatuity it was, the events of the 21st of 
February must have deeply impressed upon his mind. 
On that day was fought an action — was gained a 
victory, in the emphatic words of the Governor- 
General, " memorable alike from the greatness of the 
occasion, and from the brilliant and decisive issue of 
the encounter. For the first time, Sikh and Afghan 
were banded together against the British power. It 
was an occasion which demanded the putting forth of 
all the means at our disposal, and so conspicuous a 
manifestation of the superiority of our arms as should 
appal each enemy, and dissolve at once their compact 
by fatal proof of its futility. The completeness of the 
victory which has been won equals the highest hopes 
entertained." And there was no olficial exaggeration 
in this ; none of the vain boasting of the interested 



GOOJRAT. 45 

(lespatcli-writer. At Goojrat, to wliicli place the 1819, 
enemy had unexpectedly moved their camp, Lord 
Gough fought a great battle as a great battle ought 
to be fought, coolly and deliberately, by a British 
Commander. Every arm of his fine force was brought 
effectively into play; each in its proper place, each 
supporting and assisting the others, and each covering 
itself with glory. From the early dawn of that clear 
bright morning the cannonade commenced. Never 
had the Bengal Artillery made a nobler display ; 
never had it been worked with more terrible effect. 
Resolute and well handled as was the Sikh army, it 
could not stand up against the steady fire of our guns. 
By noon the enemy were retreating in terrible dis- 
order, "their position carried, their guns, ammuni- 
tion, camp equipage, and baggage captured, their 
flying masses driven before their victorious pursuers, 
from mid- day receiving most severe punishment in 
their flight." And all this was accomplished with 
but little loss of life on the side of the victorious 
army. It pleased the Almighty that the bloody 
lessons of the Chenab and the Jhelum should not 
be thrown away. 

A division under Sir Walter Gilbert, an oflficer of 
great personal activity, unequalled in the saddle, was 
ordered to follow up the success of Goojrat, and to 
drive the Afghans from the Punjab. And well did he 
justify the choice of his chief. By a series of rapid 
marches, scarcely excelled by any recorded in history, 
he convinced the enemy of the hopelessness of ail 
further resistance. The Barukzye force fled before 
our advancing columns, and secured the passage of 
the Khybur before British influence could avail to 
close it against the fugitives. By the Sikhs tliem- 
.^elves the game had clearly been played out. The 



45 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1849. Khalsa was now quite broken. There was nothing 
left for Shere Singh and his associates but to trust 
themselves to the clemency of the British Govern- 
ment. On the 5th of March, the Rajah sent the 
British prisoners safely into Gilbert's camp. On the 
8th, he appeared in person to make arrangements for 
the surrender of his followers , and on the 14th, the 
remnant of the Sikh army, some sixteen thousand 
men, including thirteen Sirdars of note, laid down 
their arms at the feet of the British General. 

The military chief had now done his work, and it 
was time for the appearance of the Civil Governor on 
the scene. Lord Dalhousie was on the spot prepared 
for immediate action. Already was his portfolio 
weighty with a proclamation which was to determine 
the fate of the empire of Runjeet Singh. I do not 
suppose that a moment's doubt ever obscured the 
clear, unsullied surface of the Governor- General's re- 
solution. It was a case which suggested no misgivings 
and prompted no hesitation. The Sikhs had staked 
everything on the issue of the war, and they had lost 
it in fair fight. They had repaid by acts of treachery 
and violence the forbearance and moderation of tlie 
British Government. We had tried to spare them ; 
but they would not be spared. First one course, 
then another, had been adopted in the hope that 
eventually a strong native Government might be esta- 
blished, able to control its own subjects, and willing 
to live on terms of friendly alliance with its neigh- 
bours. Our policy had from the first been wholly 
unaggressive. There was no taint of avarice or ambi- 
tion in it. But it had not been appreciated ; it had 
not been successful. The whole system had collapsed. 
And now that again a British ruler was called upon 
to solve the great problem of the Future of the 



THE FATE OF DULEEP SINGH. 47 

Punjab, he felt that there was no longer any middle 1849. 
course open to him ; that there was but one measure 
applicable to the crisis that had arisen ; and that 
measure was the annexation of the country to the 
territories of the British Empire. So a Proclamation 
was issued announcing that the kingdom founded by 
Runjeet Singh had passed under British rule : and 
the wisdom and righteousness of the edict few men 
are disposed to question. 

The last Sikh Durbar was held at Lahore. The fj'''^'^' 20. 
fiat of the British conqueror was read aloud, in the 
presence of the young Maharajah, to the remnant of 
the chiefs who had not committed themselves by open 
rebellion ; and a paper of Terms was then produced 
by which the British Government bound themselves 
to pay the annual sum of forty or fifty thousand 
pounds to the boy-Prince and his family,* so long as 
he should remain faithful to his new master and 
abide by his sovereign will. It was a happy change 
for Duleep Singh, born as he was for the Sikh 
shambles; for in his new state he had abundant 
wealth, perfect safety, freedom from all care, and the 
insurpassable blessing of a saving faith. Becoming, 
in his twelfth year, the ward of the Governor-General, 
he was placed under the immediate tutelage of an 
Assistant-Surgeon of the Bengal Army,f who was so 
fit a man for the ofiice, so worthy of the confidence 
reposed in him, that the little Sikh Prince, under his 
wise ministrations, developed into a Christian gentle- 
man, an English courtier, and a Scotch laird. And 
it may be recorded here, before I pass on to the his- 
tory of British rule in the Punjab, that the mother 

* This is not the loose diction of less tlian four, or more than five, 
doubt. The agreement was, that the lakhs of rupees. 
British Government should pay not f Afterwards Sir Johu Login. 



48 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1S49. of Duleep Singh, the widow of old Runjeet, that rest- 
less, turbulent Chund Kowr, whose intrigues did 5^.0 
much to precipitate the fall of the Sikh Empire, after 
a series of strange romantic vicissitudes, prematurely 
old, well-nigh blind, broken and subdued in spirit, 
found a resting-place at last under the roof of her 

1863. son, in a quiet corner of an English castle, and died 
in a London suburb. 

1849. The Proclamation which turned the Punjab into 

lion^oFtlie ^ British province was not the only weighty State- 
Punjab, paper in the portfolio of the Governor- General. 
Whilst Gough had been preparing to strike the last 
crushing blow at the military power of the Khalsa, 
Dalhousie, with Henry Elliot at his elbow, never 
doubting the issue, was mapping out the scheme oj 
administration under which it seemed good to him tc 
govern the country which was about to pass undei 
our rule. The crowning victory of Goojrat found 
everything devised and prepared to the minutest 
detail. The men were ready; the measures were 
defined. There was no hurry, therefore — no con- 
fusion. Every one fell into his appointed place, and 
knew what he had to do. And never had any 
Governor better reason to place unbounded confi- 
dence in the men whom he employed ; never was any 
Governor more worthily served. 

The country which had thus fallen by right of 
conquest into our hands embraced an area of fift} 
thousand square miles, and contained a popula- 
tion of four millions of inhabitants. These inhabi- 
tants were Hindoos, Mahomedans, and Sikhs. The 
last were a new people — a sect of reformed Hindoos, 
of a purer faith than the followers of the Brahminical 
superstitions. It was a Sikh Government that we 



THE PUNJAB AND ITS PEOrLE. 49 

had supplanted; and mainly a Sikli army that we ^^^^ 
had conquered ; but it must not be supposed that 
Punjabee is synonimous with Sikh, that the country 
was peopled from one end to the other with the fol- 
lowers of Nanuk and Govind, or that they were the 
ancient dwellers on the banks of those five legendary 
rivers. The cities of the Punjab were Mahomedan 
cities ; cities founded, perhaps, ere Mahomed arose, 
enlarged and beautified by the followers of the Ghuz- 
nivite. The monuments were mainly Mahomedan 
monuments, with traces here and there of Grecian 
occupation and Bactrian rule. Before Delhi had 
risen into the imperial city of the Moguls, Lahore 
had been the home of Indian kings. But the rise of 
the Sikh power was cotemporaneous with our own, 
and the apostles of the new Reformation had not 
numbered among their converts more than a section 
of the people. And as was the population, so was 
the country itself, of a varied character. Tracts of 
rich cultivated la^nds, the corn-field and the rose- 
garden, alternated with the scorched plain and the 
sandy desert. Here, as far as the eye could reach, a 
dreary level of jungle and brushwood ; there, a mag- 
nificent panorama, bounded by the blue ranges and 
the snowy peaks of the Himalayah. And ever the 
great rivers as they flowed suggested to the cultured 
mind of the English scholar thoughts of that grand 
old traditionary age, when Porus fought, and Alex- 
ander conquered, and Megasthenes wrote, and the 
home-sick Argive, on the banks of those fabulous 
streams, sighed for the pleasant country he had left, 
and rebelled against his leader and his fate. It was 
a country full of interest and full of opportunity ; 
and it grew at once into the pet province of the 

£ 



50 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

iH9. British Viceroy, tlie youngest and the most hopeful 
of all. 

That a country so situated, so circumstanced, and 
so peopled, should not be brought under the system 
of administration prevailing in our long-settled pro- 
vinces was a mere matter of course. But Dalhousie 
had no disposition to rush into the opposite extreme 
of a purely military government. He had at no time 
of his career any class prejudices, and he did not 
see why soldiers and civilians should not work har- 
moniously together in the administrative agency of 
the province. He had faith in both ; each in his ap- 
pointed place ; for there was rough soldiers' work to 
be done, and much also that needed the calm judg- 
ment and the tutored eye of the experienced civilian. 
So he called in the aid of a mixed Staff of civil and 
military officers, and at the head of this he placed a 
Board of Administration, presided over by Henry 
Lawrence.* 

The Board was to consist of three members, with 
secretaries to do the pen-work of the administration, 
and to scatter its instructions among the subordinate 
functionaries of the province. It was not a control- 
ling authority which a man of Dalhousie's stamp was 
likely to affect ; scarcely, indeed, could he be sup- 
posed to tolerate it. But he could not set aside the 
great claims of Henry Lawrence, nor, indeed, could 
he safely dispense with his services in such a con- 
juncture ; yet he was unwilling to trust to that honest, 
pure-minded, soldier-statesman the sole direction of 
affairs. The fact is that, with a refinement of the 
justice and moderation which were such conspicuous 
features of Henry's character, he dissented from the 

* Sir Frederick Currie had by this time resumed his seat in the Su- 
preme Council of India, 



JOHN LAWREXCE. 51 

policy of annexation. He tliouglit that another effort 1849. 
might have been made to save the Sikh Empire from 
destruction. Out of this difficulty arose the project of 
the Board. It was natural that Dalhousie should have 
desired to associate with one thus minded some other 
statesman whose views were more in harmony with 
his own. A Board of two is, under no circumstances, 
a practicable institution ; so a Triumvirate was esta- 
blished. But sentence of death was written down 
against it from the very hour of its birth. 

The second seat at the Board was given to the 
President's brother, John Lawrence. An officer of 
the Company's Civil Service, he had achieved a high 
reputation as an administrator ; as one of those hard- 
working, energetic, conscientious servants of the State, 
who live ever with the harness on their back, to whom 
labour is at once a duty and a delight, who do every- 
thing in a large unstinting way, the Ironsides of the 
Public Service. He had taken, in the earlier stages 
of his career, an active part in the Revenue Settlement 
of the North- Western Provinces, and had subsequently 
been appointed Magistrate of the great imperial city 
of Delhi, with its crowded, turbulent population, and 
its constant under-current of hostile intrigue. In this 
post, winning the confidence of men of all classes and 
all creeds. Lord Hardinge found him when, in 1845, 
he journeyed upwards to join the army of the Sutlej. 
There was an openness, a frankness about him that 
pleased the old soldier, and a large-hearted zeal and 
courage which proclaimed him a man to be employed 
in a post of more than common difficulty, beyond the 
circle of ordinary routine. So, after the campaign on 
the Sutle], when the Jullindur Doab was taken in part 
payment of the charges of the war, John Lawrence 
was appointed to superintend the administration of 

e2 



52 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1849. that tract of country ; and on more than one occasion, 
during the enforced absence of Henry from Lahore, in 
the first two years of the British Protectorate, he had 
occupied his brother's seat at the capital, and done his 
work with unvaried success. That there were great 
characteristic differences between the two Lawrences 
will be clearly indicated as I proceed ; but in unsullied 
honesty and intrepid manliness, they were the counter- 
parts of each other. Both were equally without a 
stain. 

The third member of the Lahore Board of Admini- 
stration was Mr. Charles Grenville Mansel, also a cove- 
nanted civilian, who had earned a high reputation as 
one of the ablest financiers in India, and who supplied 
much of the knowledge and experience which his col- 
leagues most lacked. His honesty was of as fine a 
temper as theirs, but he was a man rather of thought 
than of action, and wanted the constitutional robust- 
ness of his associates in ofiice. Perhaps his very pecu- 
liarities, rendering him, as it were, the complement of 
the other two, especially marked him out as the third 
of that remarkable triumvirate. Regarded as a whole, 
with reference to the time and circumstances of its 
creation, the Board could not have been better con- 
stituted. It did honour to the sagacity of Lord 
Dalhousie, and fully justified the choice of agents 
he had made. 

The system was one of divided labour and common 
responsibility. On Henry Lawrence devolved what 
was technically called the "political" work of the 
Government. The disarming of the country, the 
negotiations with the chiefs, the organisation of the 
new Punjabee regiments, the arrangements for the 
education of the young Maharajah, who had now be- 
come the ward of the British Government, were among 



THE PUx\JABEE OFFICIALS. 53 

the immediate duties to which he personally devoted 1849. 
himself'; the chief care of John Lawrence was the 
civil administration, especially the settlement of the 
Land Revenue; whilst Mansel superintended the 
general judicial management of the province ; each, 
however, aiding the others with his advice, and having 
a potential voice in the general Council. Under these 
chief officers were a number of subordinate adminis- 
trators of different ranks, drawn partly from the civil 
and partly from the military service of the Company. 
The province Avas divided into seven divisions, and to 
each of these divisions-a Commissioner was appointed. 
Under each of these Commissioners were certain 
Deputy- Commissioners, varying in number according 
to the amount of business to be done; whilst under 
them again were Assistant- Commissioners and Extra 
Assistants, drawn from the uncovenanted servants of 
Government — Europeans, Indo-Britons, or natives of 
pure descent. 

The officers selected for the principal posts under 
the Lahore Board of Administration were the very 
flower of the Indian services. Dalhousie had thrown 
his whole heart into the work which lay before him. 
Resolved that it should not be marred by the in- 
efficiency of his agents, he looked about him for men 
of mark and likelihood, men in the vigour of their 
years, men of good performance for the higher posts, 
and sturdy, eager-spirited youths of good promise for 
the lower. It mattered not to him whether the good 
stuff were draped in civil black or military red. Far 
above all petty prejudices of that kind, the Governor- 
General swept up his men with an eye only to the 
work that was in them, and sent them forth to do his 
bidding. Some had already graduated in Punjabee 
administration under the Protectorate ; others crossed 



54 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

18^9. the Sutlej for the first time with honours taken under 
Thomason and his predecessors in the North- West 
Provinces. And among them were such men as George 
Edmonstone, Donald Macleod, and Robert Mont- 
gomery from the one service ; Frederick Mackeson 
and George Macgregor from the other ; such men, 
besides those already named,* as Richard Temple, Ed- 
ward Thornton, Neville Chamberlain, George Barnes, 
Lewin Bowring, Philip Goldney, and Charles Saun- 
ders; soldiers and civilians working side by side, 
without a feeling of class jealousy, in the great work 
of reconstructing the administration of the Punjab 
and carrying out the executive details ; whilst at the 
head of the department of Public Works was Robert 
Napier, in whom the soldier and the man of science 
met together to make one of the finest Engineer 
officers in the world. 

They found much to do, but little to undo. The 
Government of Runjeet Singh had been of a rude, 
simple, elementary character; out of all rule; in- 
formal; unconstitutional; unprincipled; one great 
despotism and a number of petty despotisms ; accord- 
ing to our English notions, reeking with the most 
" frightful injustice." But somehow or other it had 
answered the purpose. The injustice was intelligible 
injustice, for it was simply that of the strong ^vill 
and the strong hand crushed down in turn by one 
still stronger. Petty governors, revenue-farmers, or 
kardars might oppress the people and defraud the 
State, but they knew that, sooner or later, a day of 
reckoning would come when their accounts would be 
audited by the process of compulsory disgorgement, 

* Anie, p. 12. I have here named Others there were, appointed at a 
only those distinguished during the later period, equally entitled to ho- 
earlier period of our Punjabee career, uourable mention. 



THE PUNJAB SYSTEM. 55 

or in some parts of the country settled in the noose of 1849. 
the proconsular gibbet. No niceties of conscience and 
no intricacies of law opposed an obstacle to these 
summary adjustments. During the existence of that 
great fiction the Council of Regency, we had begun to 
systematise and to complicate affairs ; and as we had 
found — at least, as far as we understood the matter — 
a clear field for our experiments, we now, on assuming 
undisguisedly the administration of the country, had 
a certain basis of our o^vn to operate upon, and little 
or nothing to clear away. 

The system of administration now introduced into 
the Punjab, formal and precise as it may have been 
when compared with the rude simplicity of the old 
Sikh Government, was loose and irregular in com- 
parison with the strict procedure of the Regulation 
Provinces. The administrators, whether soldiers or 
civilians, were limited to the discharge of no par- 
ticular departmental functions. They were judges, 
revenue-collectors, thief-catchers, diplomatists, con- 
servancy ofiicers, and sometimes recruiting Serjeants 
and chaplains, all in one. Men trained in such a school 
as this, and under such masters as the Lawrences, 
became equal to any fortune, and in no conjuncture, 
however critical, were ever likely to fail. There 
was hardly one among them who did not throw his 
whole heart into his work; who ever thought of ease, 
or leisure, or any personal enjoyment beyond that 
which comes from an honest sense of duty done. 
They lived among the people of the country, their 
tents open to all the points of the compass;* and 

* Sir John Malcolm used to say here is a pleasant illustrative proof, 

tliat tlie only way to govern the from a paper v;rritten by one of them : 

people of a newly-acquired country — " For eight months in the year the 

was by means of c/iar durwaseh kolah, tent is the proper home of him who 

or four doors open. That the Pun- loves his duties and his people. Thus 

jabee officials well understood this, he comes to know and be known of 



66 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1849. won by their personal bearing the confidence and the 
admiration of all who came within their reach. 

And so, far sooner than even sanguine men ven- 
tured to predict, the Punjab began to settle down 
under its new rulers. Even the old Khalsa fighting- 
men accepted their position, and with a manly resig- 
nation looking cheerfully at the inevitable, confessed 
that they had been beaten in fair fight, and submitted 
themselves to the English conqueror. Some were 
enlisted into the new Punjabee Irregular Regiments, 
which were raised for the internal defence of the pro- 
vince. Others betook themselves, with the pensions 
or gratuities which were bestowed upon them, to their 
fields, and merged themselves into the agricultural 
population. There was no fear of any resurrection 
of the old national cause. For whilst the people were 
forced to surrender all their weapons of war — their 
guns, their muskets, their bayonets, their sabres, their 
spears — the whole province was bristling with British 
arms. An immense military force was maintained in 
the Punjab. It was a happy circumstance that, as 
the Indus had now become our boundary and the 
country of the Sikhs our frontier province, it was 
necessary for purposes of external defence, after the 
apparent settling down of our newly-acquired terri- 
tories, still to keep our regular troops, European and 
native, at a strength more than sufiicient to render 
utterly harmless all the turbulent elements of Pun- 
jabee society. Had the British army been withdrawn 

them; thus personal influence and and almonds, according to the fashion 
local knowledge give him a power of their country, and are never so 
not to be won by bribes or upheld happy as when allowed to seat tiiem- 
by bayonets. The notables of the selves on the carpet and talk over 
'.leighbourhood meet their friend and old times and new events — the pro- 
ruler on his morning march ; grey- mise of the harvest and the last 
beards throng round his unguarded orders of the rulers." — Calcutta Re- 
door with presents of the best fruits view^ vol. xxxiii. 
of the land, or a little sugar, spices, 



THE SIKH SIRDARS. 57 

from the Punjab, as at a later period it was from 1849. 
Oude, it is hard to say what might not have resulted 
from our confidence and incaution. 

On the acquisition of a new country and the ex- 
tinction of an old dynasty, it has commonly happened 
that the chief suiferers by the revolution have been 
found among the aristocracy of the land. The great 
masses of the people have been considerately, indeed 
generously treated, but the upper classes have been 
commonly prostrated by the annexing hand, and have 
never recovered from the blow. This may be partly 
attributed to what is so often described as the "in- 
evitable tendency" of such a change from a bad to a 
good government. It has been assumed that the men 
whom we have found in the enjoyment of all the 
privileges of wealth and social position, have risen to 
this eminence by spoliation and fraud, and maintained 
it by cruelty and oppression. And it is true that the 
antecedents of many of them would not bear a very- 
jealous scrutiny. Now, so far as the substitution of a 
strong and pure for a weak and corrupt government 
must necessarily have checked the prosperous career 
of those who were living on illicit gains and tyran- 
nous exactions, it was, doubtless, the inevitable ten- 
dency of the change to injure, if not to ruin them, as 
the leaf must perish when the stem dies. But it must 
be admitted that for some years past the idea of a 
native aristocracy had been an abomination in the eyes 
of English statesmen in India ; that we had desired 
to see nothing between the Sircar, or Government, 
and the great masses of the people ; and that, how- 
ever little we might have designed it, we had done 
some great wrongs to men, whose misfortune, rather 
than whose fault, it was that they were the growth of 
a corrupt system. There was at the bottom af this a 



58 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

3849. strong desire for the welfare of the people — an eager 
and a generous longing to protect the weak against 
the tyranny of the strong; but benevolence, like 
ambition, sometimes overleaps itself, and falls prostrate 
on the other side, and out of our very love of justice 
come sometimes unjust deeds. 

To the great chiefs of the Punjab the annexation 
of the country to the British Empire was a source ot 
sore disquietude.* Mercy to the vanquished in the 
hour of victory was not one of the weaknesses they 
had been accustomed to contemplate. They had 
played for a great stake, and they had lost. They 
had brought their losses on themselves. They had 
invited by their own acts the conflict which had 
ruined them. In no one instance had our policy 
been aggressive. We had not coveted the possession 
of the Punjab. We had not invited either the 
first or the second great conflict between the British 
and the Sikh armies. A brave nation fio^htino; for 
its independence is one of the noblest spectacles 
of humanity; and the leaders of such a movement 
have just claim to sympathy and respect. But these 
men had risen against us whilst they pretended to 
be our friends. They had soiled their patriotism 
by treachery, and forfeited their honour by false- 
hood and deceit. Still, to a man of large mind and 
catholic spirit like Henry Lawrence, it could not 
seem right to judge these Sirdars as he would the 

* This was admitted in the first thusiasm, cannot return to the ordi- 

Punjab Report, the following pas- nary level of society and the common 

sage of which may be advantageously occupations of life without feeling 

quoted : — " A great revolution can- some discontent and some enmity 

not happen witiiout injuring some against their powerful but humane 

classes. When a State falls, its conquerors. But it is probable that 

nobility and its supporters must to the mass of the people will advance 

some extent suffer with it ; a domi- in material prosperity and in moral 

nant sect and party once moved by elevation under the influence of 

political ambition and religious en- British rule." 



JAGHEERS AND TENSIONS. 59 

flower of European cliivalry. So lie dealt gently 1849. 
with tlieir offences ; and when he came to consider 
their position under the new Government, he re- 
spected their fallen fortunes, and laid a lighter hand 
upon their tenures than higher authority was alto- 
gether willing to sanction. That a large portion of 
the revenue would be alienated by grants to military 
chiefs and to priestly sinecurists was certain ; not 
less certain did it appear that the money might be 
better bestowed. Still, it might be politic, even in 
a financial aspect, to tolerate for a time abuses of 
this kind, as not the most expensive means of re- 
conciling the influential classes to our rule. Thus 
argued Henry Lawrence. So these privileged classes 
received from him, in many instances, though not all 
that he wished to give, more perhaps than they had 
dared to expect. Existing incumbents were generally 
respected; and the privileges enjoyed by one gene- 
ration were to be only partially resumed in the next. 
Thus, by a well-apportioned mixture of vigour and 
clemency, the submission, if not the acquiescence, of 
the more dangerous classes was secured ; and our 
administrators were left, undisturbed by the fear of 
internal revolt, to prosecute their ameliorative mea- 
sures. It would be beyond the scope of such a nar- 
rative as this to write in detail of the operations 
which were carried out, under the Lahore Board, at 
once to render British rule a blessing to the people, 
and the possession of the Punjab an element of 
strength and security to the British Empire. These 
great victories of peace are reserved for others to 
record. That the measures were excellent, that the 
men were even better than the measures, that the 
administration of the Punjab was a great fact, at 
which Englishmen pointed with pride and on which 



60 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1349. foreigners dwelt with commendation, is freely ad- 
mitted, even by those who are not wont to see much 
that is good in the achievements of the British 
Government in India. Under the fostering care of 
the Govern or- General, who traversed the country 
from one end to the other, and saw everything with 
his own eyes, the " Punjab system" became the 
iashion, and men came to speak and to write of it as 
though it were a great experiment in government 
originated by Lord Dalhousie. But it w^as not a new 
system. It had been tried long years before, with 
marked success, and was still in force in other parts 
of India, though it had never been carried out on so 
large a scale, or in so fine a country, or been the 
darling of a viceroy. The only novelty in the con- 
struction of the administration was the Lahore Board, 
and that was abandoned as a failure. 

I do not say that it was a failure ; but it was so 
regarded by Lord Dalhousie, who, in 1853, remorse- 
lessly signed its death-warrant. A delicate operation, 
indeed, was the breaking up of the Punjabee Cabinet 
and the erection of an autocracy in its place. It was 
the will of the Governor-General that the chief direc- 
tion of affairs should be consigned to the hands, not 
of many, but of one. And when the rumour of this 
resolution went abroad, there was scarcely a house, or 
a bungalow, or a single-poled tent occupied by an 
English officer, in which the future of the Punjab — 
the question of the Lawrences — ^was not eagerly dis- 
cussed. Was Henry or was John Lawrence to re- 
main supreme director of affairs ? So much was to 
be said in favour of the great qualities of each 
brother, that it was difficult to arrive at any antici- 
patory solution of the question. But it was in the 



ABOLITION OF THE BOARD. 61 

character of the Governor- General himself that the 1S33, 
key to the difficulty should have been sought. Lord 
Hardinge would have chosen Henry Lawrence. Lord 
Dalhousie chose John. No surprise is now expressed 
that it was so ; for, in these days, the character and 
policy of Dalhousie are read by the broad light of 
history. No regret is now felt that it was so ; for, 
when the great hurricane of which I am about to 
write swept over India, each of those two great 
brothers was, by God's providence, found in his 
right place. But there were many at the time who 
grieved that the name of Henry Lawrence, who 
had been for so many years associated with all their 
thoughts of British influence in the Sikh country, and 
who had paved the way to all our after su,ccesses, 
was to be expunged from the list of Punjabee admi- 
nistrators. It was said that he sympathised overmuch 
with the fallen state of Sikhdom, and sacrificed the 
revenue to an idea ; that he was too eager to provide 
for those who suffered by our usurpation ; whilst Dal- 
housie, deeming that the balance-sheet would be re- 
garded as the great test and touchstone of success, was 
eager to make the Punjab pay. John Lawrence, it 
was said, better understood the art of raising a revenue. 
He was willing, in his good brotherly heart, to with- 
draw from the scene in favour of Henrv ; but the Go- 
vernor- General needed his services. So he was ap- 
pointed Chief-Commissioner of the Punjab, and a 
new theatre was found for the exercise of Henry 
Lawrence's more chivalrous benevolence among the 
ancient states of Rajpootana. 

Outwardly, authoritatively, and not untruthfully, 
the explanation was, that the work of the soldier-states- 
man was done, that the transition-period in which 



62 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1613. Henry Lawrence's services were so especially needed 
had passed ; that the business of internal administra- 
tion was principally such as comes within the range 
of the civil officer's duties ; and that a civilian with 
large experience, especially in revenue matters, was 
needed to direct all the numerous details of the Exe- 
cutive Government. Dalhousie never liked the Board. 
It was not a description of administrative agency 
likely to find favour in his eyes ; and it is not impos- 
sible that he placed, with some reluctance, at the 
head of it a man who had not approved the original 
policy of annexation. But he could not have read 
Henry Lawrence's character so badly as to believe 
for a moment that, on that account, the policy once 
accomplished, he could have been less eager for its 
success, or less zealous in working it out. There was 
the indication, however, of a fundamental difference of 
opinion, which as time advanced became more and 
more apparent, for Henry's generous treatment of his 
fallen enemies came from that very source of enlarged 
sympathy which rendered the policy of annexation dis- 
tasteful to him. It was natural, therefore, that the 
Governor-General, who had resolved to rid himself 
of the Board on the first fitting opportunity, should 
have selected as the agent of his pet policy, the 
administrator of his pet province, the civilian who 
concurred with, rather than the soldier who dis- 
sented from, his views. The fitting opportunity 
came at last, for there was a redistribution of some 
of the higher political offices;* and Dalhousie then 

* The Hyderabad Residency was bered) that either lie or bis brother 
about to be vacated. It was an should be sent to Hyderabad. Lord 
office that had been held by Sir Dalhousie, however, sent General 
Charles Metcalfe and other eminent Low to the Court of the Nizam, and 
men. 1 believe that Henry Law- gave Henry Lawrence the scarcely 
rence suggested (for the days of the less honourable appointment of Go- 
Board had been for some time num- vernor-General's agent in Raj pootana. 



HENRY AND JOHN LAWRENCE. 63 

swept away tlie obnoxious institution, and placed the i?^3* 
administration of the Punjab in the hands of a single 
man. 

Henry Lawrence bowed to the decision, but was not 
reconciled to it. He betook himself to his new duties 
a sadder and a wiser man. He did not slacken in 
good service to the State ; but he never again had the 
same zest for his work. Believing that he had been 
unfairly and ungratefully treated, he had no longer 
his old confidence in his master, and as the Dalhousie 
policy developed itself, under the ripening influence 
of time, he saw more clearly that he was not one to 
find favour in the eyes of the Governor- General. 
Much that he had before but dimly seen and partly 
understood now became fully revealed to him in the 
clear light of day. Once, and once only, there was 
any official conflict ; but Henry Lawrence saw much 
that whilst he deplored he could not avert, and he 
sighed to think that his principles were out of date 
and his politics out of fashion. 

In the mean while, John La^vrence reigned in the 
Punjab. The capacity for administration, which he 
had evin(ied as a Member of the Board, had now free 
scope for exercise, and was soon fully developed. His 
name became great throughout the land, and he de- 
served the praise that was lavished upon him. Right 
or wrong he did all in accordance with the faith 
that was in him. He was a fitting agent of Dalhousie's 
policy, only because he believed in that policy. And 
happily the greater part of his work lay along the 
straight road of undebatable beneficence. How he 
worked, day after day, early and late, and how all 
men worked under him, is a history now well known. 
He was emphatically a man without a weakness. 
Strong himself, bone and muscle, head and heart, of 



64 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1853. adamantine strength, that would neither bend nor 
break, he expected others to be equally strong. 
They sighed, perhaps they inwardly protested, but 
they knew that the work he exacted from them he 
gave, in his own person, unstintingly to the State : 
and they could not regard as a hard task-master one 
who tasked himself hardest of all. From moral in- 
firmities of all kinds he appeared to be equally free. 
He did not even seem to be ambitious. Men said that 
he had no sentiment, no romance. We so often judge 
our neighbours wrongly in this, that I hesitate to 
adopt the opinion ; but there was an intense reality 
about him such as I have never seen equalled. He 
seemed to be continually toiling onwards, upwards, 
as if life were not meant for repose, with the grand 
princely motto, ^' / sej^ve,'' inscribed in characters of 
light on his forehead. He served God as unceasingly 
as he served the State ; and set before all his country- 
men in the Punjab the true pattern of a Christian 
gentleman. 

And it was not thrown away. The Christian cha- 
racter of British administration in the Punjab has 
ever been one of its most distinguishing features. It 
is not merely that great humanising measures were 
pushed forward with an alacrity most honourable to 
a Christian nation — that the moral elevation of the 
people was continually in the thoughts of our ad- 
ministrators ; but that in their own personal cha- 
racters they sought to illustrate the religion which 
they professed. Wherever two or three were gathered 
together, the voice of praise and prayer went up from 
the white man's tent. It had been so during the Pro- 
tectorate, when, in tlie wildest regions and in the 
most stirring times, men like the Lawrences, Reynell 
Taylor, and Herbert Edwardes, never forgot the 



THE BURMESE. 65 

Cbvistiaii Sabbath.* And now tbat peace and order 135 j, 
reigned over the country, Christianity asserted itself ,^ 
more demonstratively, and Christian churches rose atj 
our bidding. There was little or none, too, of that 
great scandal which had made our names a hissing 
and a reproach in Afghanistan. Our English officers, 
for the most part, lived pure lives in that heathen 
land ; and private immorality under the administra- 
tion of John Lawrence grew into a grave public 
offence. 



And so the Punjab administration flourished under Conquest of 
the Chief-Commissioner and his assistants ;y and the °^* 
active mind of Lord Dalhousie was enabled to direct 
itself to new objects. Already, far down on the 
south-eastern boundary of our empire — at the point 
farthest removed of all from the great country whose 
destinies we have been considering — ^the seeds of war 
had been soAvn broad-cast. Ever since 1826, when 
the hrst contest with Ava had been brought to a close 
by the surrender to the English of certain tracts of 
country in which no Englishman could live, our rela- 
tions with the Burmese had been on an unsatisfactory 
footing. In truth, they were altogether a very un- 
satisfactory people ; arrogant and pretentious, blind 
to reason, and by no means anxious to manifest their 
appreciation of the nice courtesies of diplomatic in- 



* Many will remember that de- was sufficiently a Christian to be 
ligbtful little story, so pleasantly admitted to swell the two or three 
told in Edwardes's " Year on the into three or four. 
Punjab Frontier," of Reynell Taylor's f On the abolition of the Board, 
invitation to prayer on a Sunday Mr. Montgomery, who had succeeded 
morning in February, 1848, and of Mr. Mansel as third member, became 
the question whether the half-caste Judicial Commissioner, and Mr. Mac- 
colonel, " John Holmes," who had leod was appointed Financial Com- 
" always attended prayers at Pesha- missioner. 
wur " in Georgr© Lawrence's house. 



Gf) THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1849. tercourse. To find just cause, according to Europeait 
notions, for chastising these people would at any tim^ 
have been easy. But their insolence did us very little 
harm. We could tolerate, without loss, of credit or of 
prestige, the discourtesies of a barbarian Government 
on the outskirts of civilisation. An insult on the 
banks of the Irrawaddy was very different from an 
insult on the banks of the Jumna. The Princes and 
chiefs of India knewnothino; and cared nothins; about 
our doings far out beyond the black waters of the 
Bay of Bengal. But at last these discourtesies cul- 
minated in an outrao;e which Lord Dalhousie thouo-ht 
it became the British Government to resent. Whether, 
under more discreet manao-ement, redress mic^ht have 
been obtained and war averted, it is now of little 
moment to inquire. A sea-captain was appointed to 
conduct our diplomacy at Rangoon, and he con- 
ducted it successfully to a rupture. A war ensued, to 
which the future historian of India may devote a not 
very inviting chapter, but its details have nothing to 
do with the story of this book. English arms were 
triumphant, and the province of Pegu lay at our 
feet. Dalhousie annexed it to the British Empire, 
" in order that the Government of India might hold 
from the Burmese State both adequate compensation 
for past injury, and the best security against future 
danger." Thus did the British Empire, which had so 
recently been extended to the north-west, stretch itself 
out to the south-east ; and the white man sat himself 
down on the banks of the Irrawaddy as he had seated 
himself on the banks of the Indus. There were not 
wanting those who predicted that the whole of 
Burmah would soon become British territory, and 
that then the ^'uncontrollable principle," by reference 
to which a great English statesman justified the 



THE ANNEXATION OF PEGU. 67 

seizure of Sindh, would send the English conqueror 1849. 
to grope his way through the Shan States and Siam 
to Cochin-China. But these apprehensions were 
groundless. The administrator began his work in 
Pegu, as he had begun his work in the Punjab, and 
there was no looking beyond the frontier ; but, on the 
other hand, a desire to avoid border disputes, or, if 
they could not be avoided, to treat them as matters 
of light account, inevitable and soon to be forgotten. 
There was a military officer, admirably fitted for the 
work, who had served long and successfully, as a 
civil administrator, in Arracan ; who knew the Bur- 
mese language and the Burmese people, and had a 
great name along the eastern coast. Those isolated 
regions beyond the Bay of Bengal are the grave of all 
catholic fame. Whilst the name of Lawrence was in 
all men's mouths, Phayre was pursuing the even 
tenor of his way, content with a merely local reputa- 
tion. But the first, and as I write the only commis- 
sioner of Pegu, is fairly entitled to a place in the very 
foremost rank of those English administrators who 
have striven to make our rule a blessing to the people 
of India, and have not failed in the attempt. 

In India the native mind readily pervades vast 
distances, and takes little account of space that the 
foot can travel. But it is bewildered and confused by 
the thought of the "black water." The unknown is 
the illimitable. On the continent of India, therefore, 
neither our war-successes nor our peace-successes in 
the Burmese country stirred the heart of Indian 
society. In the lines of the Sepoy or the shops of the 
money-changer they were not matters of eager inte- 
rest and voluble discourse. We might have sacked 
the cities of Ava and Amarapoora, and caused their 
sovereign lord to be trodden to death by one of his 

f2 



63 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

Z?A^. white elephants Avithout exciting half the interest 
engendered by a petty outbreak in Central India, or 
the capture of a small fort in Bundelkund. The 
Princes and chiefs of the great continent of Hindostan 
knew little and cared less about a potentate, however 
magnificent in his own dominions, who neither wor- 
shipped their gods nor spoke their language, and 
who was cut off from their brotherhood by the in- 
tervention of the great dark sea. We gained no 
honour, and we lost no confidence, by the annexation 
of this outlying province ; but it opened to our Native 
Soldiery a new field of service, and unfortunately it 
was bevond the seas. 



LArs2. G9 



CHAPTER II. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUD DALHOUSIE— ADOPTION — THE "EIGHT OF 

lapse"— SATTARAH — NAGPORE — JHANSI— KEROWLEE THE CARNATIC — 

TANJORE— THE CASE OF THE PEISHWAH — DUNDOO PUNT, NANA SAHIB — 
SUMBIIULPORE. 

So, three years after his arrival in India, Dalhousie 184S.1856, 
had brought to a close two great military campaigns, 
and had captured two great provinces. . He had then 
done with foreign wars; his after-career was one of 
peaceful invasion. Ere long there was a word which 
came to be more dreaded than that of Conquest. The 
native mind is readily convinced by the inexorable 
logic of the sword. There is no appeal from such 
arbitration. To be invaded and to be conquered is a 
state of things appreciable by the inhabitant of India. 
It is his " kismut ;" his fate ; God s will. One stronger 
than he cometh and taketh all that he hath. There 
are, however, manifest compensations. His religion is 
not invaded ; his institutions are not violated. Life 
is short, and the weak man, patient and philosophical, 
is strong to endure and mighty to wait. But Lapse 
is a dreadful and an appalling word ; for it pursues 
the victim beyond the grave. Its significance in his 
eyes is nothing short of eternal condemnation 



70 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1S484856. "The son," says tlie great Hindoo lawgiver, "de- 
livers his father from the hell called Put." There 
are, he tells us, different kinds of sons ; there is the 
son begotten ; the son given ; the son by adoption ; 
and other filial varieties. It is the duty of the son to 
perform the funeral obsequies of the father. If they 
be not performed, it is believed that there is no re- 
surrection to eternal bliss. The right of adoption is, 
therefore, one of the most cherished doctrines of 
Hindooism. In a country where polygamy is the 
rule, it might be supposed that the necessity of adopt- 
ing another man's offspring, for the sake of these cere- 
monial ministrations, or for the continuance of an 
ancestral name, would be one of rare occurrence. But 
all theory on the subject is belied by the fact that the 
Princes and chiefs of India more frequently find them- 
selves, at the close of their lives, without the solace of 
male offspring than with it. The Zenana is not an 
institution calculated to lengthen out a direct line of 
Princes. The alternative of adoption is one, therefore, 
to which there is frequent resort ; it is a source of 
unspeakable comfort in life and in death ; and politi- 
cally it is as dear to the heart of a nation as it is 
personally to the individual it affects. 

It is with the question of Adoption only in its 
political aspects that I have to do in this place. There 
is a private and personal, as there is a public and 
political, side to it. No power on earth beyond a 
man's own will can prevent him from adopting a son, 
or can render that adoption illegal if it be legally per- 
formed. But to adopt a son as a successor to private 
property is one thing, to adopt an heir to titular 
dignities and territorial sovereignty is another. With- 
out the consent of the Paramount State no adoption 



THE SATTARAH LAPSE. 71 

Of the latter kind can be valid. Whether in this case 1818-1856 
of a titular Prince or a possessor of territorial rights, 
dependent upon the will of the Government, Hindoo- 
ism is satisfied by the private adoption and the penal- 
ties of the sonless state averted, is a question for the 
pundits to determine ; but no titular chief thinks the 
adoption complete unless he can thereby transmit his 
name, his dignities, his rights and privileges to his 
successor, and it can in no wise be said that the son 
takes the place of his adoptive father if he does not 
inherit the most cherished parts of that father s pos- 
sessions. 

But whether the religious element does or does not J848. 
rightly enter into the question of political adoptions, Sattaran. 
nothing is more certain than that the right, in this 
larger political sense, was ever dearly prized by the 
Hindoos, and was not alienated from them by the 
Lords-Paramount who had preceded us. The im- 
perial recognition was required, and it was commonly 
paid for by a heavy "nuzzurana," or succession- duty, 
but in this the Mogul rulers were tolerant. It was 
reserved for the British to substitute for the right of 
adoption what was called 'Hhe right of lapse," and in 
default of male heirs of the body lawfully begotten to 
absorb native principalities into the great amalgam 
of our British possessions. " In 1849," wrote Lord 
Dalhousie, in his elaborate farev/ell minute, "the 
principality of Sattarah was included in the British 
dominions by right of lapse, the Rajah having died 
without male heir." The Princes of Sattarah were the 
descendants of Sevajie, the founder and the head of 
the Mahratta Empire. Their power and their glory 
had alike departed. But they were still great in 
tradition, and were looked up to with respect by the 



'72 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1848. Mahrattas of Western India. In April, 1848, the last 
Rajah died;* and a question arose as to whether, no 
direct male heir of the body having been left by the 
deceased, a son by adoption, or a collateral member 
of the family, should be permitted to succeed him, or 
whether the rights and titles of the principality should 
be declared to be extinct. Sir George Clerk was then 
Governor of Bombay. He looked at the Treaty of 
1819 ; saw that " the British Government agreed to 
cede in perpetual sovereignty to the Rajah of Sattarah, 
his heirs and successors," the territories which he had 
held, and at once declared himself in favour of the 
continuance of the native Raj. The members of his 
Council looked upon the question as purely one of 
expediency, and considered it the duty of the British 
Government to decide it in the manner most advan- 
tageous to ourselves. But the Governor refused to 
admit any secondary considerations, saying, " If it be 
inconsistent with justice to refuse coniirmation to the 
act of adoption, it is useless to inquire whether it is 
better for the interests of the people or of the empire 
at large to govern the Sattarah territories through the 
medium of a native Rajah, or by means of our own 
administration." The trumpet of that statesman Avas 
not likely to give an uncertain sound. 

When this question first arose, the Govern or- Gene- 
ral was in his novitiate. But new as he was to the 
consideration of such subjects, he does not appear to 
have faltered or hesitated. The opinions, the practi- 
cal expression of which came subsequently to be called 

* Appa Saliib. He had sue- creditable. It is wortliy of remark, 

ceeded liis brother, who in 1839 that Sir Robert Grant, being satisfied 

was deposed, and, as I think, very of the Rajah's guilt, proposed to 

rightly, on account of a series of punish him in the manner least 

intrigues against the British Go- likely to be advantageous to our- 

vernment, equally foolish and dis- selves. 



THE POLICY OF ANNEXATION. 73 

the "policy of annexation," were formed at tlie very 1848. 
outset of his career, and rigidly maintained to its 
close. Eight months after his first assumption of the 
Government of India, he placed on record a confes- 
sion of faith elicited by this agitation of the Sattarah 
question. Subsequent events of far greater magni- 
tude dwarfed that question in the public mind, and 
later utterances of the great minute-writer caused 
this first manifesto to be comparatively forgotten ; 
but a peculiar interest must ever be associated with 
this earliest exposition of Dalhousie's political creed, 
and therefore I give it in the words of the statesman 
himself: "The Government," he wrote on the 30th 
August, 1848, " is bound in duty, as well as policy, 
to act on every such occasion with the purest in- 
tegrity, and in the most scrupulous observance of 
good faith. Where even a shadow of doubt can be 
shown, the claim should at once be abandoned. But 
where the right to territory by lapse is clear, the 
Government is bound to take that which is justly 
and legally its due, and to extend to that territory 
the benefits of our sovereignty, present and prospec- 
tive. In like manner, while I would not seek to lay 
down any inflexible rule with respect to adoption, I 
hold that, on all occasions, where heirs natural shall 
fail, the territory should be made to lapse, and adop- 
tion should not be permitted, excepting in those cases 
in which some strong political reason may render it 
expedient to depart from this general rule. There 
may be conflict of opinion as to the advantage or the 
propriety of extending our already vast possessions 
beyond their present limits. No man can more sin- 
cerely deprecate than I do any extension of the 
frontiers of our territory which can be avoided, or 
which may not become indispensably necessary from 



74 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1B49. considerations of our own safety, and of the mainte- 
nance of tlie tranquillity of our provinces. But I 
cannot conceive it possible for any one to dispute the 
policy of taking advantage of every just opportunity 
which presents itself for consolidating the territories 
that already belong to us, by taking possession of 
States that may lapse in the midst of them ; for thus 
getting rid of these petty intervening principalities, 
which may be made a means of annoyance, but which 
can never, I venture to think, be a source of strength, 
for adding to the resources of the public Treasury, 
and for extending the uniform application of our sys- 
tem of government to those whose best interests, we 
sincerely believe, will be promoted thereby. Such is 
the general principle that, in our humble opinion, 
ought to guide the conduct of the British Govern- 
ment in its disposal of independent States, where 
there has been a total failure of heirs whatsoever, or 
where permission is asked to continue by adoption a 
succession which fails in the natural line." 

The Court of Directors of the East India Company 
confirmed the decision of the Govern or- General, and 
Sattarah was annexed. There were men, however, in 
the Direction who protested against the measure as an 
act of unrighteous usurpation. " We are called upon," 
said Mr. Tucker, ever an opponent of wrong, "to 
consider and decide upon a claim of right, and I have 
always felt that our best policy is that which most 
closely adheres to the dictates of justice." "We 
ought not to forget," said Mr. Shepherd, who, on 
great questions of this kind, was commonly to be 
found side by side with his veteran friend, contending 
for the rights of the native Princes of India, "that 
during the rise and progress of our empire in the 
East, our Governments have continued to announce 



DEATH OF THE BONSLAH. 75 

and proclaim to the people of India that not only 1849- 
should all their rights and privileges which existed 
under preceding Governments be preserved and main- 
tained, but that their laws, habits, customs, and pre- 
judices should be respected."* And what right more 
cherished, what custom more honoured, than the right 
and custom of adoption ? But the majority of the 
Court of Directors supported the views of the Governor- 
General. They had heard the voice of the charmer. 
And from that time the policy of Dalhousie became 
the policy of Leadenhall-street, and the '' Right of 
Lapse" was formally acknowledged. 

And it was not, for reasons which I have already i853. 
given, likely long to remain a dead letter. Soon ^agpoi"e. 
another of the great Mahratta chiefs was said to be 
dying, and in a few days news came to Calcutta that 
he was dead. It was the height of the cold season 
of 1853 — a few days before Christmas — ^^vhen the 
slow booming of minute guns from the Saluting 
Battery of Fort William announced the death of 
Ragojee Bonslah, Rajah of Nagpore. At the age of 
forty-seven he succumbed to a complication of dis- 
orders, of which debauchery, cowardice, and obstinacy 
were the chief. There have been worse specimens of 
royalty, both in Eastern and Western Palaces, than 
this poor, worn-out, impotent sot; for although he 
was immoderately addicted to brandy and dancing- 
girls, he rather liked his people to be happy, and was 
not incapable of kindness that caused no trouble to 
himself. He had no son to succeed him ; a posthu- 
mous son was an impossibility ; and he had not 
adopted an heir. 

It may seem strange and contradictory that if the 

* Colonel OHphant and Mr. Leslie Melville recorded minutes on the 
same side. 



76 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1853. right of adoption as sanctioned by religion and pre- 
scribed by ancestral usage be so dear to tlie people of 
India, tliey should ever fail to adopt in default of heirs 
of their body. But we know that they often do ; and 
the omission is readily explicable by a reference to the 
ordinary weaknesses of humanity. We know that 
even in this country, with all the lights of civilisation 
and Christianity to keep us from going astray, thou- 
sands of reasoning creatures are restrained from 
making their wills by a vague feeling of apprehension 
that there is something ^' unlucky" in such a pro- 
cedure ; that death will come the sooner for such a 
provision against its inevitable occurrence. What 
wonder, then, that in a country Avhich is the very 
hotbed of superstition, men should be restrained by 
a kindred feeling from providing against the event of 
their dissolution ? But in this case there is not only 
the hope of life, but the hope of offspring, to cause the 
postponement of the anticipatory ceremony. Men, 
under the most discouraging circumstances, still cling 
to the belief that by some favourable reaction of 
nature they may, even when stricken in years, beget 
an heir to their titles and possessions. In this sense, 
too, adoption is held to be unlucky, because it is 
irreligious. It is like a surrender of all hope, and a 
betrayal of want of faith in the power and goodness 
of the Almighty. No man expects to beget a son 
after he has adopted one. 

In the case, too, of this Mahratta Prince, there were 
special reasons why he should have abstained from 
making such a provision for the continuance of his 
House. According to the law and usage of his 
country, an adoption by his widow would have been 
as valid as an adoption by himself. It was natural, 
therefore, and assuredly it was in accordance with 



THE NAGPORE SUCCESSIQJT. 77 

the aharacLer of tlie man, who was gormandising and 1S53, 
dallying with the hand of death upon him, that he 
should have left the ceremony to be performed by 
others. Whether it was thus vicariously performed is 
not very clearly ascertainable. But it is certain that 
the British Resident reported that there had been no 
adoption. The Resident was Mr. Mansel, who had 
been one of the first members of the Lahore Board of 
Administration — a man with a keen sense of justice, 
favourable to the maintenance of native dynasties, 
and therefore, in those days, held to be crotchety and 
unsound. He had several times pressed the Rajah on 
the subject of adoption, but had elicited no satisfactory 
response. He reported unequivocally that nothing had 
been done, and asked for the instructions of the 
Supreme Government. 

Lord Dalhousie was then absent from Calcutta. 
He was making one of his cold- weather tours of in- 
spection — seeing with his own eyes the outlying pro- 
vince of Pegu, which had fallen by right of conquest 
into his hands. The Council, in his absence, hesitated 
to act, and all the instructions, therefore, which they 
could send were to the effect that the Resident should 
provide for the peace of the country, and keep things 
quiet until further orders. There was no doubt about 
Dalhousie's decision in such a case. Had the Rajah 
adopted a son, there was little likelihood of the 
Governor- General's sanction of the adoption ; but as 
he had wilfully failed to perform the ceremony, it ap- 
peared to be as clear as noon-day that the great organ 
of the Paramount State would pronounce the fatal 
sentence of Lapse. 

Dalhousie returned to Calcutta, and with cha- 
racteristic energy addressed himself to the mastery of 
the whole question. Before the first month of the 



78 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

Jan. 28, new year had worn to a close, he attached his signa- 
ture to an elaborate minute, in which he exhausted 
all the arguments which could be adduced in favour 
of the annexation of the country. Printed at full 
length, it would occupy fifty pages of this book. It 
was distinguished by infinite research and unrivalled 
powers of special pleading. It contended that there 
had been no adoption, and that if there had been, it 
would be the duty of the British Government to 
refuse to recognise it. "I am well aware," he said, 
** that the continuance of the Raj of Nagpore under 
some Mahratta rule, as an act of grace and favour on 
the part of the British Government, would be highly 
acceptable to native sovereigns and nobles in India ; 
and there are, doubtless, many of high authority who 
would advocate the policy on that special ground. I 
understand the sentiment and respect it ; but re- 
membering the responsibility that is upon me, I can- 
not bring my judgment to admit that a kind and 
generous sentiment should outweigh a just and 
prudent policy." 

Among the members of the Supreme Council at 
that time was Colonel John Low. An old officer of 
the Madras army, who long years before, when the 
Peishwah and the Bonslah were in arms against the 
British, had sate at the feet of John Malcolm, and 
had graduated in diplomacy under him, he had never 
forgotten the lessons which he had learnt from his 
beloved chief; he had never ceased to cherish those 
"kind and generous sentiments" of which the Go- 
vernor-General had spoken in his minute. His whole 
life had been spent at the Courts of the native Princes 
of India. He had represented British interests long 
and faithfully at the profligate Court of Lucknow. 
He had contended with the pride, the obstinacy, and 



JOHN LOW. 79 

the superstition of the effete Princes of Rajpootana. 1854. 
He had played, and won, a difficult game, with the 
bankrupt State of Hyderabad. He knew what were the 
vices of Indian Princes and the evils of native misrule. 
But he had not so learnt the lesson presented to him 
by the spectacle of improvident rulers and profligate 
Courts ; of responsibilities ignored and opportunities 
wasted ; as to believe it to be either the duty or the 
policy of the Paramount Government to seek "just oc- 
casions" for converting every misgoverned princi- 
pality into a British province. Nor had he, knowing 
as he did, better perhaps than any of his countrymen, 
the real character of such misgovernment, ever che- 
rished the conviction that the inhabitants of every 
native State were yearning for the blessings of this 
conversion. There were few such States left — Hindoo 
or Mahomedan — but what remained from the wreck 
of Indian dynasties he believed it to be equally just 
and politic to preserve. And entertaining these 
opinions, he spoke them out ; not arrogantly or 
offensively, but with what I believe may be described 
as the calm resolution of despair. He knew that he 
might speak with the tongue of angels, and yet that 
his speech would no more affect the practical result 
than a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. What 
am I against so many ? he said ; nay, what am I 
against one? Who will listen to the utterance of 
my ideas when opposed to the " deliberately-formed 
opinion of a statesman like the Marquis of Dalhousie, 
in whose well-proved ability and judgment and in- 
tegrity of purpose they have entire confidence ?"* But 
great statesmen in times past had thought that the 
extension of British rule in India was, for our own 
sakes, to be arrested rather than accelerated ; that the 

♦ Minute cf Colonel John Low. February 10, ISol. 



so THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1S54. native States were a source to us of strength rather 
than of weakness, and that it would go ill with us 
when there were none left.* 

Strong in this belief, Colonel Low recorded two 
minutes, protesting against the impolicy and the in- 
justice of the ; proposed annexation of Nagpore. He 
said that already the annexation of Sattarah had in 
many parts of India had a "bad moral effect ;f that it 
had shaken the confidence of the people i\\ the justice 
and good faith of the British Government ; that 
people had asked what crim.e Sattarah had committed 
that sentence of political death should thus have been 
pronounced against it ; that throughout India acqui- 
sition by conquest was well understood, and in many 
cases admitted to be right ; that the annexation of the 
Punjab, for example, had not been regarded as a 
wrong, because the chiefs and people had brought it 
on themselves, but that the extinction of a loyal native 
State, in default of heirs, was not appreciable in any 
part of India, and that the exercise of the alleged 
right of lapse would create a common feeling of 
uncertainty and distrust at every Durbar in the 

* "If Great Britain shall retain 1850, v^here I met many old ac- 

lier present powerful position among quaintaaces, whom I had known 

the States of Europe, it seem? highly when a very young man, and over 

probable that, owing to the infringe- whom I held no authority, I found 

ment of their treaties on the part of tbese old acquaintances speak out 

native Princes and other causes, the mnch more distinctly as to their 

whole of India will, in the course of o'dnion of the Sattarah case ; so 

time, become one British province ; much so, that I was, on several 

but many eminent statesmen iiave occasions, obliged to check them, 

been of opinion that we ought most It is remarkable that every native 

carefully to avoid unnecessarily ac- M^ho ever spoke to me respecting the 

celerating the arrival of that great annexation of Sattarah, asked pre- 

change ; and it is within my own cisely the same question : ' What 

knowledge that the following five crime did the late Eajah commit that 

great men were of that number — his country should be seized by the 

namely. Lord Hastings, Sir Thomas Company ?* Thus clearly indicating 

!Munro, Sir John Malcolm, the Hon. their notions, that if any crimn had 

Mountstuart Elphinstone, and Lord been committed our act would have 

Metcalfe." — Minute, Feb. 10, 1854. been justifiable, and not otherwise.'* 

t " When I went to Malwa, in Minute of Colonel Low, Feb. 10, 1854-. 



LOW'S MINUTES. 81 

CO (ill try. He dwelt upon the levelling effects of 185^ 
British dominion, and urged that, as in our own 
provinces, the upper classes were invariably trodden 
down, it was sound policy to maintain the native 
States, if only as a means of providing an outlet for 
the energies of men of good birth and aspiring natures, 
who could never rise under British rule. He con- 
tended that our system of administration might be far 
better than the native system, but that the people did 
not like it better ; they clung to their old institutions, 
however defective, and were averse to change, even 
though a change for the better. " In one respect," he 
said, "the natives of India are exactly like the in- 
habitants of all parts of the known world ; they like 
their own habits and customs better than those of 
foreigners." 

Having thus in unmeasured opposition to the Dal- 
housie theory flung down the gauntlet of the old 
school at the feet of the Governor- General, Low 
ceased from the enunciation of general principles, and 
turned to the discussion of the particular case before 
him. He contended that the treaty between the 
British Government and the late Rajah did not limit 
the succession to heirs of his body, and that, there- 
fore, there was a clear title to succession in the 
Bonslah family by means of a son adopted by 
either the Rajah himself or by his eldest wddow, in 
accordance with law and usage. The conduct, he 
said, of the last Prince of Nagpore had not been such 
as to alienate this right; he had been loyal to the 
Paramount State, and his country had not been mis- 
governed ; there had been nothing to call for mili- 
*^Ty interference on our part, and little to compel 
grave remonstrance and rebuke. For what crime, 
then, was his line to be cut off and the honours of 

G 



82 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1554. his House extinguislied for ever? To refuse tlii* 
right of adoption in such a case would, he alleged, 
be entirely contrary to the spirit, if not to the letter, 
of the treaty — But how was it to be conceded when 
it was not claimed ; when no adoption had been 
reported ; when it was certain that the Rajah had not 
exercised his right, and there had been no tidings of 
such a movement on the part of his widow? The 
answer to this was, that the Government had been 
somewhat in a hurry to extinguish the Raj without 
waiting for the appearance of claimants, and that if 
they desired to perpetuate it, it was easy to find a 
fitting successor. 

Of such opinions as these Low expected no sup- 
port in the Council-chamber of Calcutta — no support 
from the authorities at home. It little mattered, in- 
deed, what the latter might think, for the annexation 
of Nagpore was decreed and to be accomplished with- 
out reference to England. As the extinction of the 
Sattarah State had been approved by the Company, 
in the face of an undisputed adoption asserted at the 
right time, Dalhousie rightly j udged that there would 
be no straining at a gnat in the Nagpore case, where 
there had been no adoption at all. Indeed, the 
general principles upon which he had based his pro- 
ceedings towards Sattarah, in the first year of his 
administration, having been accepted in Leadenhall- 
street, there could be no stickling about so mild an 
illustration of them as that afforded by the treatment 
of Nagpore. The justification of the policy in the 
latter instance is to be found in the fact that there 
was no assertion of an adoption — no claim put for- 
ward on behalf of any individual — at the time when 
the British Government was called upon to determine 



. EXTINCTION OF THE BONSLAH FAMILY. 83 

the course to be pursued. It is true that the provi- 1854. 
sional Government might, for a time, have been 
vested in the eldest widow of the deceased Prince, 
adoption by whom would have been recognised by- 
Hindoo law and Mahratta usage ; but it was not 
probable that the British Government would have 
thus gone out of its way to bolster up a decayed 
Mahratta dynasty, when the head of that Govern- 
ment conscientiously believed that it was the duty of 
the Paramount State to consolidate its dominions by 
recognising only among these effete Princes succession 
by direct heirship of the body. Cherishing the faith 
which he did, Dalhousie would have gone grievously 
wrong, and he would have stood convicted of a 
glaring inconsistency, if he had adopted any other 
course ; so the kingdom of Berar was declared to 
have lapsed to the British Government, and the 
family of the Bonslah was extinct. 

The country passed under British rule, and the 
people became British subjects, without an audible 
murmur of discontent except from the recesses of the 
palace. There the wretched ladies of the royal house- 
hold, at first dismayed and paralysed by the blow 
which had fallen upon them, began, after a little 
space, to bestir themselves and to clamour for their 
asserted rights. Liberal pensions had been settled 
upon them ; but their family was without a head, 
and that which might soon have faded into an idea 
was rendered a galling and oppressive reality by the 
spoliation of the palace, which followed closely upon 
the extinction of the Raj. The live stock and dead 
stock of the Bonslah were sent to the hammer. It 
must have been a great day for speculative cattle- 
dealers at Seetabaldee when the royal elephants, 

g2 



84 THE ADMINISTRATION' OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1354:, horses, and bullocks were sold off at the price of 
carrion :* and a sad day, indeed, in the royal house- 
hold, when the venerable Bankha Baee,f with all the 
wisdom and moderation of fourscore well-spent years 
upon her, was so stung by a sense of the indignity 
offered to her, that she threatened to fire the palace if 
the furniture were removed. But the furniture was 
removed, and the jewels of the Bonslah family, 
with a few propitiatory exceptions, were sent to the 
Calcutta market. And I have heard it said that 
these seizures, these sales, created a worse impression, 
not only in Berar, but in the surrounding provinces, 
than the seizure of the kingdom itself. J 

But even in the midst of their degradation, these 
unfortunate ladies clung to the belief that the Bons- 
lah family v/ould some day be restored and rehabi- 
litated. The Governor- General had argued that the 
widow, knowing that her husband was disinclined to 
adopt, had, for like reasons, abstained from adoption. 
He admitted the right according to Mahratta usage, 
but declared that she was unwilling to exercise it. 
He contended, too, that the Bankha Baee, the most 
influential of the royal ladies, would naturally be 
averse to a measure which would weaken her own 
authority in the palace. But his logic halted, and 

* Between five and six Imndred f The Bankha Baee was a widow- 
elephants, camels, horses, and bul- of the deceased Rajah's grandfatlier. 
locks were sold for 1300/. The Ha- J I know that the question of 
nees sent a protest to the Commis- public and private property, in such 
sioner, and memorialised the Gover- cases, is a very difficult one, and I 
uor-General, alleging^, in the best sliall not attempt to decide it here. 
English that tlie Palace could fur- 1 only speak of the intense mortifi- 
nisli, that " on tlie 4th instant (Sept.) cation which these sales create in the 
the sale of animals, viz. bullocks, family itself, and the bad impres- 
horses, camels, and elephants, com- sion which they produce throughout 
menced to sell by public auction and the country. Rightly or wrongly, 
resolution— a pair her hackery bul- they cast great discredit on our 
locks, valued 100 rupees, sold in the name ; and the gain of money is not 
above sale for 5 rupees.'* wortli the loss of character. 



RETIREMENT OF MR. MANSEL. 85 

his prophecy failed. Both the elder and the younger j^gg^ 
lady were equally eager to perpetuate the regal dig- 
nities of their House. Mr. Mansel had suggested a 
compromise, in the shape of an arrangement some- 
what similar to that which had been made with the 
Newabs of the Carnatic, by which the title might be 
maintained, and a certain fixed share of the revenue 
set apart for its dotation. But he had been severely 
censured for his indiscretion, and had. left Nagpore 
in disgrace. He was, perhaps, the best friend that 
the Ranees had in that conjuncture; but — such is 
the value of opinion — they accused him, in the 
quaint Palace-English of their scribe, of '' endeavour- 
ing to gain baronetage and exaltation of rank by re- 
porting to the Governor- General that the late Rajah 
was destitute of heirs to succeed him, with a view to 
his Lordship being pleased to order the annexation 
of the territory."* But there was not a man in the 
country less disposed to annex provinces and to 
humour Governors than Charles Mansel, and instead 
of being exalted in rank, he sacrificed his prospects 
to his principles and retired from the Service. 

Failing altogether to move the Governor-General, 
the Ranees sent agents to London, but with no better 

* Lord Dalliousie, in liis Nap^pore imperatively requires, in order to 

Minute, says that the Rajali did not render the act of adoption valid, still 

adopt, partly because he did not like the known disinclination of the Hajah 

to acknowledge his inability to beget to all adoption could not fail to dis- 

a son, and partly because lie feared incline his widow to have recourse to 

that Ihe existence of an adopted son adoption after his decease." It will 

might some day be used as a pretext be seen at once that the ordinary 

for deposing him. He then observes : logical acumen of the Governor-Gc- 

" The dislike of the late Rajah to the neral failed him in this instance, for 

adopt ion of a successor, was of course the very reasons given by the writer 

known to his widow ; and although himself for the failure of adoption hj 

T.he custom of the Mahrattas exempts the ]lajah ceased altogether to be 

her from that necessity for having operative, ipso facto, " after hbde- 

the concurrence of her husband in cease." 
adoption, which general Hindoo law 



86 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1854 result. After the manner of native emissaries from 
Indian Courts, they spent large sums of money in 
feeing lawyers and printing pamphlets, without 
making any impression on Leadenhall-street or Can- 
non-row, and at last, being recalled by their em- 
ployers, and having nothing wherewith to pay their 
debts, they flung themselves on the generosity of their 
opponents, and were sent home by the help of the great 
Corporation whom they had reviled. Meanwhile, the 
elder widow of the late Rajah died, and a boy, of an- 
other branch, whom the Ranees called Janojee Bons- 
lah, and in whose person they desired to prolong the 
Nagpore dynasty, was formally adopted by the dying 
lady. Clutching at any chance, however desperate, 
an attempt was made to revive the question of the 
political adoption ; but the sagacity of the Bankha 
Baee must have seen that it was too late, and that 
nothing but the private property of the deceased 
Princess could be thus secured to the adopted 
heir. The country of the Bonslahs had become as 
inalienably a part of the Company's possessions as 
the opium go-downs of Patna, or the gun-factory at 
Cossipore. 

Thus, within a few years of each other, the names 
of two of the great rulers of the Mahratta Empire 
ceased from off the roll of Indian Princes ; and the 
territories of the Company were largely increased. 
Great in historical dignity as was the Sattarah Raj, 
it was comparatively limited in geographical extent, 
whilst the Bonslah, though but a servant in rank, 
owned rich and productive lands, yielding in profu- 
sion, among other good gifts, the great staple of our 
English manufactures.* Whilst the annexation of 

* Lord Dalliousie put forth the ments whicli he adduced in favour of 
cotton-growinq qualit ics of the Berar the annexation of the territory, 
country as one of the many argu- 



SATTAKAH AND NAGPORE. 87 

tlie Punjab and of Pegu extended the British Empire 1854. 
at its two extreme ends, these Mahratta acquisitions 
helped to consohdate it. Some unseemly patches, 
breaking the great rose-hued surface, which spoke of 
British supremacy in the East, were thus effaced from 
the map ; and the Right of Lapse was proclaimed to 
the furthermost ends of our Indian dominions. 

There is a circumstantial difference between these 
two cases, inasmuch as that, in the one, there was an 
actual and undisputed adoption by the deceased 
Rajah, and in the other there Avas none ; but as 
Dalhousie had frankly stated that he would not have 
recognised a Nagpore adoption had there been one, the 
two resumptions were governed by the same principle. 
And this was not a mere arbitrary assertion of the 
power of the strong over the weak, but was based, at 
all events, on a plausible substratum of something 
that simulated reason and justice. It was contended 
that, whenever a native Prince owed his existence 
as a sovereign ruler to the British Government, that 
Government had the right, on failure of direct heirs, 
to resume, at his death, the territories of which it 
had originally placed him in possession. The power 
that rightly gives, it was argued, may also rightfully 
take away. Now, in the cases both of Sattarah and 
Nagpore, the Princes, wliom the British Government 
found in possession of those States, had forfeited their 
rights: the one by hidden treachery and rebellion, 
the other by open hostility. The one, after full in- 
quiry, had been deposed ; the other, many years 
before, had been driven into the jungle, and had 
perished in obscurity a fugitive and an outcast* In 

* It is to be observed, too, with Raj itself bad been resuscitated by- 
respect to Sattarah, that not only had us in the person of his predecessor, 
the last Rajah been elevated by the We had found the Rajah prostrate 
British Government, but that the and a prisoner, almost, it may be 



88 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUD DALHOUSIE. 

IS54. both, cases, therefore, the " crime" had been com- 
mitted which the natives of India are so willing to 
recognise as a legitimate reason for the punishment 
of the weaker State by the stronger. But the offence 
had been condoned, and the sovereignty had been 
suffered to survive ; another member of the reigning 
family being set up by the Paramount State in place 
of the offending Prince. Both Pertaub Singh and 
Ragojee Bonslah, as individuals, owed their sove- 
reign power to the grace and favour of the British 
Government. All this is historical fact. It may be 
admitted, too, that when the crimes of which I have 
spoken were committed by the heads of the Sattarah 
and Nagpore families, the British Government would 
have been justified in imposing conditions upon the 
restoration of the Raj, to the extent of limiting the 
succession to heirs of the body, or even in making a 
personal treaty with the favoured Prince conferring 
no absolute right of sovereignty upon his successors. 
But the question is whether, these restrictions not 
having been penally imposed, at the time of for- 
feiture, the right which then might have been exer- 
cised could be justly asserted on the occurrence of a 
subsequent vacancy created by death? Lord Dal- 
housie thought that it could — that the circumstances 
under which the Sattarah and Nagpore Princes had 
received their principalities as free gifts from the 
British Government conferred certain rights of suze- 
rainty on that Government, which otherwise they 
could not have properly asserted. But, on the other 
hand, it is contended that both principalities, what- 

said, at his last gasp ; we had res- necessarily imparted additional force 

cued him from liis enemies, and set to it. The same may be said of tiie 

him up in a principality of his own ; Nagpore Enj. It was "resuscitated'* 

a fact which, assumin^g the validity by the British Government, 
■^f the argument against adoption, 



JHANSI. 89 

soever might have been the oiFences committed years iS54v 
before by their rulers, had been re-established in their 
integrity — that no restrictions as to their continuance 
had then been imposed — that treaties had been con- 
cluded containing the usual expressions with respect 
to succession — in a word, that the condonation had 
been complete, and that both the Sattarah and the 
Nagpore Houses really possessed all the rights and 
privileges which had belonged to them before the 
representative of the one compromised himself by a 
silly intrigue, and the head of the other, with equal 
fatuity, plunged into hostilities which could result 
only in his ruin. 

This justificatory plea, based upon the alleged 
right of the British Government to resume, in default 
of direct heirs, tenures derived from the favour of the 
Lord Paramount, was again asserted about the same 
time, but with some diversity of application. Com- 
paratively insignificant in itself, the case claims espe- 
cial attention on account of results to be hereafter 
recorded in these pages. In the centre of India, 
among the small principalities of Bundelkund, was 
the state of Jhansi, held by a Mahratta chief, origi- JimnsL 
nally a vassal of the Peishwah. But on the transfer 
to the British Government of that Prince's posses- 
sions in Bundelkund, the former had resolved "to 
declare the territory of Jhansi to be hereditary in the 
family of the late Sheo Rao Bhow, and to perpetuate 
with his heirs the treaty concluded with the late 
Bhow ;" and, accordingly, a treaty was concluded 
with the ruling chief. Ram Chand, then only a 
Soubahdar, constituting '^ him, his heirs and succes- 
sors," hereditary rulers of the territory. Loyal and 
well disposed, he won the favour of the British Go- 
vernment, who, fifteen years after the conclusion of 



90 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1851 the treaty, conferred upon him the title of Rajah, 
which he only lived three years to enjoy. 

For all purposes of succession he was a childless 
man ; and so various claimants to the chiefship ap- 
peared. The British agent believed that the most 
valid claim was that of the late Rajah's uncle, who 
was at all events a direct lineal descendant of one of 
the former Soubahdars. He was a leper, and might 
have been rejected, but, incapable as he was, the 
people accepted him, and, for three years, the admi- 
nistration of Jhansi was carried on in his name. At 
the end of those three years he died, also w^ithout 
1S38. heirs of the body, and various claimants as before 
came forward to dispute the succession. Having no 
thought of absorbing the State into our British terri- 
tories. Lord Auckland appointed a commission of 
British officers to investigate and report upon the 
pretensions of the several claimants ; and the result 
was, that Government, rightly considering that if the 
deceased Rajah had any title to the succession, his 
brother had now an equally good title, acknowledged 
Gungadhur Rao's right to succeed to the hereditary 
chiefship. 

Under the administration of Ragonath the Leper 
the country had been grossly mismanaged, and as 
his successor was scarcely more competent, the British 
Government undertook to manage the State for him, 
and soon revived the revenue which had dwindled 
down under the native rulers. But, in 1843, after 
the amputation of a limb of the territory for the sup- 
port of the Bundelkund Legion, the administration 
was restored to Gungadhur Rao, who carried on the 
government for ten years, and then, like his prede- 
cessors, died childless. 

Then again arose the question of succession ; but 



ANNEXATION OF JHANSI. 91 

the claims of the different aspirants to the Raj were 1853» 
regarded with far other eyes than those which had 
scrutinised them in times past. The Governor- Gene- 
ral recorded another fatal minute, by which the 
death-warrant of the State was signed. It was ruled 
that Jhansi was a dependent State, held by the favour 
of the Peishwah, as Lord Paramount, and that his 
powers had devolved upon the British Government. 
A famous minute recorded, in 1837, by Sir Charles 
Metcalfe, was cited to show the difference between 
Hindoo sovereign Princes and " chiefs who hold 
grants of land or public revenue by gift from a sove- 
reign or paramount Power," and to prove that, in the 
latter case, " the Power which made the grant, or 
that which by conquest or otherwise has succeeded to 
its rights, is entitled to limit succession," and to 
" resume on failure of direct heirs of the body."* To 
demonstrate the right to resume was in those days 
tantamount to exercising it. So Jhansi was resumed. 
In vain the widow of the late Rajah, whom the Poli- 
tical Agent described as " a lady bearing a high cha- 
racter, and much respected by every one at Jhansi," 
protested that her husband's House had ever been 
faithful to the British Government — in vain she 
dwelt upon services rendered in former days to that 
Government, and the acknowledgments which they 
had elicited from our rulers — in vain she pointed to 
the terms of the treaty, which did not, to her simple 
understanding, bar succession in accordance with the 
laws and usages of her country — in vain she quoted 

* But what Sir Charles Metcalfe suck cases,iherehre, the Vower which. 

really said was, that the paramount granted, or the Power standing in its 

Power was "entitled to limit succes- place, would liave a right to resume 

sion according to the limitations of on failure of heirs male of the body.'* 

the grant, w^iicli in general confirms This passage is very fairly quoted in 

it >o heirs male of the body, and Lord Dalhousie's Minute, 
consequently precludes adoption. In 



92 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1853. precedents to show tliat the grace and favour sought 
for Jhansi had been yielded to other States. The fiat 
was RTevocable. It had been ruled that the interests 
both of the Jhansi State and the British Government 
imperatively demanded annexation. ^'As it lies in 
the midst of other British districts," said Lord Dal- 
housie, ^'the possession of it as our own will tend to 
the improvement of the general internal administra- 
tion of our possessions in Bundelkund. That its in- 
corporation with the British territories will be greatly 
for the benefit of the people of Jhansi a reference to 
the results of experience will suffice to show." The 
results of experience have since shown to what extent 
the people of Jhansi appreciated the benefits of that 
incorporation. 

KeroTrlee. Whilst this question was being disposed of by Lord 
Dalhousie and his colleagues, another lapse was under 
consideration, which had occurred some time before, 
but regarding which no final decision had been 
passed. In the summer of 1852, the young chief of 
Kerowlee, one of the smaller Rajpoot States, had died, 
after adopting another boy, connected with him by 
ties of kindred. At that time Colonel Low repre- 
sented the British Government in Rajpootana, and he 
at once pronounced his opinion that the adoption 
ought immediately to be recognised. 

The Governor-General hesitated. It appeared to 
him that Kerowlee might, rightly and expediently, 
be declared to have lapsed. But his Council was 
divided; his Agent in Rajpootana had declared un- 
equivocally for the adoption ; and the case difi'ered 
in some respects from the Sattarah question, which 
had already been decided with the sanction and ap- 
proval of the Home Government. How great the 
difierence really was appeared far more clearly to the 



KEROWLEE. 93 

experienced eye of Sir Frederick Currie than to the 1855. 
vision of the Governor- General, clouded as it was by 
the film of a foregone conclusion.* The name of 
Sattarah had, by the force of accidental circum- 
stances, become great throughout the land, both in 
India and in England; it was a familiar name to 
thousands and tens of thousands who had never 
heard of KeroAvlee. With the Mahrattas, too, the 
House of Sivajee had been held in high veneration ; 
but the Mahrattas could only boast of recent sove- 
reignty; their high estate was one of modern usur- 
pation. Their power had risen side by side with 
our own, and had been crushed down by our greater 
weight and greater vigour. But the Houses of Raj- 
pootana had flourished centuries before the establish- 
ment of British rule , and the least of them had an 
ancestral dignity respected throughout the whole 
length and breadth of Hindostan, and treaty rights 
not less valid than any possessed by the greatest of 
territorial Princes. To men who had graduated, 
from boyhood upwards, in Indian statesmanship, 
there was something almost sacrilegious in the idea 
of laying a destroying hand even upon the least of 
the ancient Houses of Rajpootana — of destroying 
titles that had been honoured long years before the 
face of the white man had been seen in the country. 
But impressions of this kind are the growth of long 
intercourse with the people themselves, and we cannot 
be surprised that, after a year or two of Indian go- 
vernment. Lord Dalhousie, with all his unrivalled 
quickness of perception, should not have thoroughly 
understood the vital differences between the various 

•-' Sir i^rederlck Currie's Minute facts, clear in its logic, anv^i unuxcep- 
on the Kerowlee question is an ad- tionable in its political morality. 
mirable state-paper — accurate in its 



94 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1852. races inhabiting tlie great continent of India. Had 
he done so, he would at once have sanctioned the 
proposed adoption ; as it was, he referred the question 
to the final decision of the Home Government. 

Eager as they were at that time to support the policy 
of Lord Dalhousie, and entire as was the faith of many 
of them in his wisdom, the Directors could not look 
with favour upon a proposal to commence the gradual 
extinction of the ancient principalities of Rajpootana. 
Jan. 2G, '^ It appears to us," they said, " that there is a marked 

^^^'^' distinction in fact between the case of Kerowlee and 
Sattarah, which is not sufficiently adverted to in the 
Minute of the Governor- General. The Sattarah State 
was one of recent origin, derived altogether from the 
creation and gift of the British Government, whilst 
Kerowlee is one of the oldest of the Rajpoot States, 
which has been under the rule of its native Princes 
from a period long anterior to the British power in 
India. It stands to us only in the relation of pro- 
tected aUy, and probably there is no part of India 
into which it is less desirable, except upon the 
strongest grounds, to substitute our government for 
that of the native rulers. In our opinion, such 
grounds do not exist in the present case, and we 
have, therefore, determined to sanction the succession 
of Bhurt Pal." 

But before the arrival of the despatch expressing 
these just sentiments and weighty opinions, all chance 
of the succession of Bhurt Pal had passed away. Had 
the adoption been granted at once, it would, in all 
probability, have been accepted by the members of 
the late Rajah's family, by the principal chiefs, and 
by the people of the country. But it is the inevitable 
tendency of delay in such a case to unsettle the public 
mind, to raise questions v^hich but for this suspense 



KEROWLEE. 95 

would not have been born, and to excite hopes and 1853. 
stimulate ambitions which otherwise would have lain 
dormant. So it happened that whilst London and 
Calcutta were corresponding about the rights of 
Bhurt Pal, another claimant to the sovereignty of 
Kerowlee was asserting his pretensions in the most 
demonstrative manner. Another and a nearer kins- 
man of the late Prince — older, and, therefore, of a 
more pronounced personal character — stood forward 
to proclaim his rights, and to maintain them by arms. 
The ladies of the royal family, the chiefs, and the 
people, supported his claims; and the representative 
of the British Government in Rajpootana recognised 
their validity. That representative was Sir Henry 
Lawrence. Succeeding General Low in the Agency, 
he cherished the same principles as those which had 
ever been so consistently maintained by that veteran 
statesman ; but circumstances had arisen which moved 
him to give them a different application. This new 
pretender to the throne had better claims on the score 
of consanguinity than Bhurt Pal, but Adoption over- 
rides all claims of relationship, and. if the adoption 
were valid, the latter was legally the son and heir of 
the deceased. In this view, as consonant with the 
customs of the country, Henry La^vrence would have 
supported the succession of Bhurt Pal ; but, on inves- 
tigation, it appeared that all the requirements and 
conditions of law and usage had not been fulfilled, 
and that the people themselves doubted the validity 
of the adoption. It appeared to him, therefore, that 
the British Government would best discharge its duty 
to Kerowlee by allowing the succession of Muddun 
Pal. Even on the score of adoption his claims were 
good, for he had been adopted by the eldest of the 
late Rajah's widows, which, in default of adoption by 



96 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1853. the Raj all himself, would have been good agamst all 
claimants. But, in addition to this, it was to be said 
of the pretensions of this man that he was older than 
the other ; that a minority would thus be avoided 
altogether ; that he had some personal claims to con- 
sideration ; and that the voice of the chiefs and the 
people had decided in his favour. As the succession, 
therefore, of Bhurt Pal had not been sanctioned, and 
as the decision of the Home Government in his favour 
had not been published, there would be no wrong to 
him in this preference of his rival, so Henry Lawrence 
recommended, and the Government of Lord Dalhousie 
approved, the succession of Muddun Pal to the sove- 
reignty of Kerowlee. 

So Lapse, in this instance, did not triumph ; and 
the ancient Houses of Rajpootana, which, during 
these two years of suspense, had awaited the issue 
with the deepest interest, felt some temporary relief 
when it was known that the wedge of annexation had 
not been driven into the time-honoured circle of the 
States. But it is not to be supposed that because no 
wrong was done at last no injury was done by the 
delay. Public rumour recognises no Secret Depart- 
ment. It was well known at every native Court, in 
every native bazaar, that the British Government 
were discussing the policy of annexing or not annex- 
ing Kerowlee. The mere fact that there was a ques- 
tion to be discussed, in such a case, was sufficient to fill 
the minds of the people with anxiety and alarm. For 
two years Kerowlee was without any other ruler than 
the Political Agent of the British Government ; and 
this was a significant fact, the impression of which 
was not to be removed by the subsequent decision. 
The Rajpoot Princes lost their confidence in the good 
faith of the British Government. Kerowlee had beei2 



EAJPOOT ALARMS. 97 

spared, tliey scarcely knew how ; some were fain to l?53. 
attribute it to the well-known justice and liberality of 
Henry Lawrence. But the same moderation might 
not be displayed again ; there were childless men 
amongst them ; and from that time a restless, uneasy 
feeling took possession of them, and no man felt sure 
that his House would not perish with him. It was 
not strange, indeed, that a year or two afterwards 
there should have been in circulation all over the 
country ominous reports to the effect that the policy 
of Lord Dalhousie had eventually triumphed, and 
that the gradual absorption of all the Rajpoot States 
had been sanctioned by the Home Government. It 
was a dangerous lie ; and even the habitual reticence 
of the Court of Directors was not proof against the 
grossness of the calumny ; so it was authoritatively 
contradicted. But not before it had worked its way 
in India, and done much to undermine the founda- 
tions of that confidence which is one of the main 
pillars of our strength. 

There is one other story of territorial annexation Sumbhulpore 

• 1849 

yet to be told — briefly, for it was not thought at the 
time to be of much political importance, and now is 
held but little in remembrance. Beyond the south- 
western frontier of Bengal was the territor}-' of Sum- 
bhulpore. It had formerly been an outlying district 
of the Nagpore principality, but had been ceded by 
the Bonslah family, and had been bestowed by the 
British on a descendant of the old Sumbhulpore 
Rajahs, under terms which would have warranted 
the resumption of the estate on the death of the first 
incumbent. But twice the sovereign rights had been 
bestowed anew upon members of the family, and not 
until 1849, when Narain Singh lay at the point of 
death, was it determined to annex the territory to 



98 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1849. tlie British dominions. There were no heirs of the 
body ; no near relatives of the Rajah. No adoption 
had been declared. The country was said to have 
been grievously misgoverned. And so there seemed 
to be a general agreement that the Lapse was per- 
fect, and that annexation might be righteously pro- 
claimed. Dalhousie was absent from the Presidency ; 
but the case was clear, and the Government neither 
in India nor in England hesitated for a moment. 
And, perhaps, though it was not without its own 
bitter fruit, there is less to be said against it, on the 
score of abstract justice, than against anything of 
which I have written in this division of my work. 

But there were lapses of another kind, lapses 
which involved no gain of territory to the British 
Government, for the territory had been gained be- 
fore. There were several deposed princes in the land, 
representatives of ancient Houses, whose sceptres had 
passed by conquest or by treaty into the white man's 
hand, but who still enjoyed the possession of consi- 
derable revenues, and maintained some semblance of 
their former dignity and state. It happened that, 
whilst Dalhousie reigned in India, three of these 
pensioned princes died. Of the story of one of them 
I must write in detail. There had once been three 
great Mahratta Houses : the Houses of Sattarah, of 
Nagpore, and of Poonah. It has been told how 
Dalhousie extinguished the two first ; the third had 
been for some thirty years territorially extinct, 
when he was sent out to govern India. In 1818, 
at the close of the second great Mahratta war, 
the Peishwah, Badjee Rao, surrendered to Sir John 
Malcolm. He had been betrayed into hostility, and 
treacherous hostility ; he had appealed to the sword, 
and he had been fairly beaten ; and there was nothing 



THE FALL OF THE PEISHWAH. 99 

left for Ilim but to end his clays as an outcast and a 1818. 
fugitive, or to fling himself upon the mercy of the 
British Government. He chose the latter course ; 
and when he gave himself to the English General, 
he knew that he was in the hands of one who sym- 
pathised with him in his fallen fortunes, and would 
be a generous friend to him in adversity. Malcolm 
pledged the Government to bestow upon the Peish- 
wah, for the support of himself and family, an annual 
pension of not less than eight lakhs of rupees. The 
promise was said to be an over-liberal one ; and 
there were those who at the time condemned Mal- 
colm for his profuseness. But he replied, that " it 
had been the policy of the British Government, since 
its first establishment in India, to act towards princes, 
whose bad faith and treachery had compelled it to 
divest them of all power and dominion, with a gene- 
rosity which almost lost sight of their offences. The 
effect of this course of proceeding in reconciling all 
classes to its rule had been great. The liberality and 
the humanity which it had displayed on such occa- 
sions had, I was satisfied, done more than its arms 
towards the firm establishment of its power. It was, 
in fact, a conquest over mind, and among men so 
riveted in their habits and prejudices as the natives 
of their country, the effect, though unseen, was great 
beyond calculation." It was a solace to him to think 
that these sentiments were shared by such men as 
Mountstuart Elphinstone, David Ochterlony, and 
Thomas Munro. 

So Badjee Rao went into honourable seclusion, and 
an asylum was found for him at Bithoor, distant 
some twelve miles from the great military station 
of Cawnpore, in the North- Western Provinces of 
India. He was not then an old man, as age is calcu- 
L,fC H 2 



100 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1818-51. lated by years, but he was said to be of debauched 
habits and feeble constitution ; and no one believed 
that he would ver}^ long survive to be a burden upon 
the Company. But he outlived his power for a 
third part of a century, living resignedly, if not con- 
tentedly, in his new home, with a large body of fol- 
lowers and dependents, mostly of his own race, and 
many others of the outward insignia of state. From 
the assemblage, under such circumstances, of so large 
a body of Mahrattas, some feeling of apprehension 
and alarm might have arisen in the mind of the 
British Government, especially in troubled times ; 
but the fidelity of the ex-Peishwah himself was as 
conspicuous as the good conduct and the orderly 
behaviour of his people. Nor was it only a passive 
loyalty that he manifested ; for twice in critical con- 
junctures, when the English were sore-pressed, he 
came forward with offers of assistance. When the 
War in Afghanistan had drained our Treasury, and 
money was grievously wanted, he lent the Company 
five lakhs of rupees ; and when, afterwards, our 
dominions were threatened with an invasion from 
the Punjab, and there was much talk all over the 
country of a hostile alliance between the Sikhs and 
the Mahrattas, the steadfastness of his fidelity was 
evidenced by an ofi'er made to the British Govern- 
ment to raise and to maintain at his o^vn cost a 
thousand Horse and a thousand Foot. As he had 
the disposition, so also had he the means to serve 
us. His ample pension more than sufiiced for the 
wants even of a retired monarch ; and as years 
passed, people said that he had laid by a great store 
of wealth, and asked who was to be its inheritor ? 
For it was with him, as it was with other Mahratta 
princes, he was going down to the grave leaving no 



DEATH OF THE TEISHWAH. 101 

«on to succeed him. So he adopted a son, from his 181S-51. 
own family stock,* and, some years before his death, 
sought the recognition of the British Government for 
an adoption embracing more than the right of suc- 
cession to his savings (for this needed no sovereign 
sanction) the privilege of succeeding to the title and 
the pension of the Peishwah. The prayer was not 
granted ; but the Company did not shut out all hope 
that, after the death of Badjee Rao, some provision 
might be made for his family. The question was re- 
served for future consideration — that is, until the 
contingency of the ex-Peishwah's death should be- 
come an accomplished reality ; and as at this time 
the old man was feeble, paralytic, and nearly blind, 
it was not expected that his pension would much 
longer remain a burden on the Indian revenues. 

But not until the 28th of January, 1851, when Death of 
there was the weight of seventy-seven years upon ^ ^^^ '^^ 
him, did the last of the Peishwahs close his eyes 
upon the world for ever. He left behind him a will, 
executed in 1839, in which he named as his adopted 
son, " to inherit and be tbe sole master of the Guddee 
of the Peishwah, the don.hiions, wealth, family pos- 
sessions, treasure, and all Ids real and personal pro- 
perty," a youth known as Doondoo Punt, Nana Sahib. The Kana 
When Badjee Eao died, the heir was twenty-seven 
years old ; described as '' a quiet, unostentatious 
young man, not at all addicted to any extravagant 
habits, and invariably showing a ready disposition to 
attend to the advice of the British Commissioner." 

* Strictly it should be said that Rao, my j^randson ; tliese three are 

lie adopted three sons and a grand- my sons and grandson. After me 

son. His will says : " That Doondoo Doondoo Punt, Nana, my eldest son, 

Puiit, Nana, my eldest son, and Gun- Mookh Perdan, shall inherit and br; 

gadhur llao, my youngest and third the sole master of the Guddee of the 

son, and Sada-Sheo Punt Dada, son Peishwah, &c." — MS. Records, 
of my second son, PuiidoD ilung 



102 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1S51. What lie was safe to inherit was about 300,0007., 
more than one-half of which was invested in Govern- 
ment securities ;* but there wls an immense body of 
dependents to be provided for, and it was thought 
that the British Government might appropriate a 
portion of the ex-Peishwah's stipend to the support 
of the family at Bithoor. The management of affairs 
was in the hands of the Soubahdar Ramchunder 
Punt, a faithful friend and adherent of Badjee Rao, 
who counselled his master with wisdom, and con- 
trolled his followers with vigour ; and he now, with 
all due respect for the British Government, pleaded 
the cause of the adopted son of the Peishwah. " Nana 
Sahib," he said, " considering the Honourable Com- 
pany in the room of the late IMaharajah as his pro- 
tector and supporter, is full of hopes and free of care 
on this subject. His dependence in every way is on 
the kindness and liberality of the British Govern- 
ment, for the increase of whose power and prosperity 
he has ever been, and will continue to be, desirous." 
The British Commissioner at Bithoorf supported the 
appeal in behalf of the family, but it met with no 
favour in high places. Mr. Thomason was then 
Lieutenant-Governor of tht-: North- Western Provinces. 
He was a good man, an able man, a man of high re- 
putation, but he was one of the leaders of the New 
School, and was no friend to the princes and nobles 
of the land ; and he told the Commissioner to dis- 
courage all hopes of further assistance in the breasts 

* The official report of the Com- Manson was Commissioner -when the 

missioner said, 16 lakhs of Govern- Peisliwah died, but he left Bithoor 

ment paper, 10 lakhs of jewels, 3 shortly afterwards, and Mr. Morland, 

lakhs of gold coins, 80,000 rupees then magistrate at Cawnpore, took 

gold ornaments, 20,000 rupees silver his place, and on him devolved the 

plate. principal business of the settlement 

j- It should rather be said, " two of the ex-PeishTah's affairs. 
British Commissioners." Colonel 



THE NANA SAHIB. 103 

of the family, and to " strive to induce tlie numerous 1651. 
retainers of the Peisliwah speedily to disperse and 
return to the Deccan." Lord Dalhousie was Go- 
vernor-General ; and, in such a case, his views were 
little likely to differ from those of his Lieutenant. 
So he declared his opinion that the recommendations 
of the Commissioner were ^' uncalled for and unrea- 
sonable." " The Governor-General," it was added, 
" concurs in opinion with his Honour (Mr. Thoma- 
son) in thinking thd;, unaer any circumstances, the 
Family have no claim upon the Government ; and 
he will by no means consent to any portion of the 
public revenues being conferred on them. His Lord- 
ship requests that the determination of the Govern- 
ment of India may be explicitly declared to the 
Family without delay." And it was so declared ; 
but with some small alleviation of the harshness of 
the sentence, for the Jagheer, or rent-free estate, of 
Bithoor was to be continued to the Nana Sahib, but 
without the exclusive jurisdiction which had been 
enjoyed by the ex-Peishwah. 

When Doondoo Punt learnt that there was no hope Memorial o 
of any further assistance to the family at Bithoor *^^ ^'*^^* 
from the liberality of the Government of India, he 
determined to appeal to the Court of Directors of 
the East India* Company. It had been in contem- 
plation daring the lifetime of Badjee Rao to adopt 
such a course, and a son of the Soubahdar Ram- 
chunder had been selected as the agent who was to 
prosecute the appeal. But discouraged by the Com- 
missioner, the project had been abandoned, and was 
not revived until all other hope had failed after the 
ex-Peishwah's death. Then it was thought that a 
reversal of the adverse decision might be obtained 
by memorialising the authorities in England, and a 



104 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALEOUSIE. 

December 29, memorial was accordingly drawn up and des^)alclied, 
in the usual manner, through the Government in 
India. ''The course pursued by the local govern- 
ments," it was said, " is not only an unfeeling one 
towards the numerous family of the deceased prince, 
left almost entirely dependent upon the promises of 
the East India Company, but inconsistent with what 
is due to the representative of a long line of sove- 
reigns. Your memorialist, therefore, deems it expe- 
dient at once to appeal to your Honourable Court, 
not merely on the ground of the faith of treaties, but 
of a bare regard to the advantages the East India 
Company have deri\ ed from the last sovereign of the 

Mahratta Empire It would be contrary to 

the spirit of all treaties hitherto concluded to attach 
a special meaning to an article of the stipulations 
entered into, whilst another is interpreted and acted 
upon in its most liberal sense." And then the me- 
morialist proceeded to argue, that as the Peishwah, 
on behalf of his heirs and successors, had ceded his 
territories to the Company, the Company were bound 
to pay the price of such cession to the Peishwah and 
his heirs and successors. If the compact were lasting 
on one side, so also should it be on the other. " Your 
memorialist submits that a cession of a perpetual 
revenue of thirty -four lakhs of rupees in considera- 
tion of an annual pension of eight lakhs establishes a 
de facto presumption that the payment of one is con- 
tingent upon the receipt of the other, and hence that, 
as long as those receipts continue, the payment of the 
pension is to follow." It was then argued that the 
mention, in the treaty, of the " Family" of the Peish- 
wah indicated the hereditary character of the stipula- 
tion, on the part of the Company, as such mention 
would be unnecessary and unmeaning in its ap plica- 



^lEMORIAL OF THE NANA SAHIB. 105 

tioii to a mere life-grant, *'for a provision for tlie 18* 
support of the prince necessarily included the main- 
tenance of his family ;" and after this, from special 
arguments, the Nana Sahib turned to a general asser- 
tion of his rights as based on precedent and analogy. 
'• Your memorialist," it was said, "is at a loss to 
account for the difference between the treatment, by 
the Company, of the descendants of other princes 
and that experienced by the family of the Peishwah, 
represented by him. The ruler of Mysore evinced 
the most implacable hostility towards the Company's 
government ; and your memorialist's father was one of 
the princes whose aid was invoked by the Company 
to crush a relentless enemy. When that chieftain 
fell, sword in hand, the Company, far from abandon- 
ing his progeny to their fate, have afforded an asylum 
and a liberal support to more than one generation of 
his descendants, without distinction between the legi- 
timate and the illegitimate. With equal or even 
greater liberality the Company delivered the de- 
throned Emperor of Delhi from a dungeon, re-in- 
vested him with the insignia of sovereignty, and 
assigned to him a munificent revenue, which is con- 
tinued to his descendants to the present day. Wherein 
is your memorialist's case different? It is true that 
the Peishwah, after years of amity with the British 
Indian Government, during which he assigned to 
them revenues to the amount of half a crore of 
rupees, was unhappily engaged in war with them, by 
which he perilled his throne. But as he was not 
reduced to extremities, and even if reduced, closed 
with the terms proposed to him by the British Com- 
mander, and ceded his rich domains to place himself 
and his family under the fostering care of the Com- 
pany, and as the Company still profit by the revenues 



106 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUD DALHOUSIE. 

1852. of his hereditary possessions, on what principle are 
his descendants deprived of the pension included in 
those terms and the vestiges of sovereignty ? Wherein 
are the claims of his family to the favour and consi- 
deration of the Company less than those of the con- 
quered Mysorean or the captive Mogul ?" Then the 
Nana Sahib began to set forth his own personal 
claims as founded on the adoption in his favour ; he 
quoted the best authorities on Hindoo law to prove 
that the son by adoption has all the rights of the 
son by birth ; and he cited numerous instances, 
drawn from the recent history of Hindostan and the 
Deccan, to show how such adoptions had before been 
recognised by the British Government. "The same 
fact," he added, " is evinced in the daily practice of 
the Company's Courts all over India, in decreeing to 
the adopted sons of princes, of zemindars, and persons 
of every grade, the estates of those persons to the ex- 
clusion of other heirs of the blood. Indeed, unless 
the British Indian Government is prepared to abro- 
gate the Hindoo Sacred Code, and to interdict the 
practice of the Hindoo religion, of both of which 
adoption is a fundamental feature, your memorialist 
cannot understand with what consistency his claim 
to the pension of the late Peishwah can be denied, 
merely on the ground of his being an adopted 
son." 

Another plea for refusal might be, nay, had been, 
based upon the fact that Badjee Eao, from the 
savings of his pension, had accumulated and left 
behind him a large amount of private property, 
which no one could alienate from his heirs. Upon 
this the Nana Sahib, with not unreasonable indigna- 
tion, said : " That if the withholding of the pension 
proceeded from the supposition that the late Peish- 



MEMORIAL OF THE NANA SAHIB. 107 

wah had left a sufficient provision for liis family, ifc 1852. 
would be altogether foreign to the question, and un- 
precedented in the annals of the Histcry of British 
India. The pension of eight lakhs of rupees per 
annum has been agreed upon on the part of the 
British Government, to enable his Highness the late 
Badjee Rao to support himself and family ; it is im- 
material to the British Government what portion of 
that sum the late prince actually expended, nor has 
there been any agreement entered into to the effect 
that his Highness the late Badjee Rao should be 
compelled to expend every fraction of an annual 
allowance accorded to him by a special treaty, in 
consideration of his ceding to the British Govern- 
ment territories yielding an annual and perpetual 
revenue of thirty-four lakhs of rupees. Nobody on 
earth had a right to control the expenditure of that 
pension, and if his Highness the late Badjee Rao had 
saved every fraction of it, he would have been per- 
fectly justified in doing so. Your memorialist would 
venture to ask, whether the British Government ever 
deigned to ask in what manner the pension granted 
to any of its numerous retired servants is expended ? 
or whether any of them saves a portion, or what 
portion, of his pension ? and, furthermore, in the 
event of its being proved that the incumbents of such 
pensions had saved a large portion thereof, it would 
be considered a sufficient reason for withholding the 
pension from the children in the proportions stipu- 
lated by the covenant entered into with its servant ? 
And yet is a native prince, the descendant of an an- 
cient scion of Royalty, who relies upon the justice 
and liberality of the British Government, deserving 
of less consideration than its covenanted servants? 
To disperse, however, any erroneous impression that 



108 'inE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DATJIOUSIE. 

1S53. may exist on tlie part of the British Government on 
that score, your memorialist would respectfully beg 
to observe that the pension of eight lakhs of rupees, 
stipulated for by the treaty of 1818, was not exclu- 
sively for the support of his Highness the late Badjee 
Rao and his family, but also for the maintenance of 
a large retinue of faithful adherents, who preferred 
following the ex-Peishwah in his voluntary exile. 
Their large number, fully known to the British Go- 
vernment, caused no inconsiderable call upon the 
reduced resources of his Highness ; and, furthermore, 
if it be taken into consideration the appearance 
which Native princes, though rendered powerless, 
are still obliged to keep up to ensure respect, it may 
be easily imagined that the savings from a pension of 
eight lakhs of rupees, granted out of an annual re- 
venue of thirty -four lakhs, could not have been large. 
But notwithstanding this heavy call upon the limited 
resources of the late Peishwah, his Highness hus- 
banded his resources with much care, so as to be 
enabled to invest a portion of his annual income in 
public securities, which, at the time of his death, 
yielded an income of about eighty thousand rupees. 
Is then the foresight and the economy on the part of 
his Highness the late Badjee Rao to be regarded as 
an offence deserving to be visited with the punish- 
ment of stopping the pension for the support of his 
m:s. Records, family guaranteed by a formal treaty ?" 

But neither the rhetoric nor the reasoning of the 
Nana Sahib had any effect upon the Home Govern- 
ment. The Court of Directors of the East India 
Company were hard as a rock, and by no means to 
be moved to compassion. They had alreadv ex- 
pressed an opinion that the savings of the Peishwah 
were sufficient for the maintenance of hi3 heirs and 



AZIM-OOLLAH KHAN. 109 

dependents ;* and when the memorial came before 185?^. 
them, they summarily rejected it, writing out to the the Company. 
Government to " inform the memorialist that the 
pension of his adoptive father was not hereditary, 
that he has no claim whatever to it, and that his 
application is wholly inadmissible." Such a reply as May 4, 1S53.. 
this must have crushed out all hope from the Bithoor 
Family, and shown the futility of further action ; but 
it happened that, before this answer was received, 
the Nana Sahib had sent an agent to England to pro- 
secute his claims. This agent was not the son of the 
old Mahratta Soubahdar, to whom the mission first 
contemplated was to have been entrusted, but a 
young and astute Mahomedan, with a good presence, 
a plausible address, and a knowledge of the English 
language. His name was Azim-oollah_ Khjji . In the 
summer of 1 853 he appeared in England, and in con- 
junction with an Englishman, named Biddle, prose- 
cuted the claims of the Nana, but with no success. 
Judgment had already been recorded, and nothing 
that these agents could say or do was likely to cause 
its reversal. 

So Azim-ooUah Khan, finding that little or nothing 
could be done in the way of business for his em- 
ployer, devoted his energies to the pursuit of pleasure 
on his own account. Passing by reason of his fine 
clothes for a person of high station, he made his way 
into good society, and is said to have boasted of 
favours received from English ladies. Outwardly he 
was a gay, smiling, voluptuous sort of person ; and 

* "3/(7^19, 1852. — ^We entirely three years afforded liim the means 
approve of the decision of the Go- of making an abundant provision for 



vernor-General that the adopted son his family and dependents, and the 

and dependents on Badjee Rao have property, which he is known to ' 

no claim upon the British Govern- left, is amply sufficient for 

ment.^ The large pension which the support." — The Court of Direct 

ex-Peishwah enjoyed during' thirty- the Government of India.— MS. 



110 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1853. even a shrewd observer might have thought that he 
was intent always upon the amusement of the hour. 
There was one man, however, in England at that 
time, who, perhaps, knew that the desires of the 
plausible Mahomedan were not bounded by the en- 
joyment of the present. For it happened that the 
agent, who had been sent to England by the deposed 
Sattarah Family, in the hope of obtaining for them 
the restoration of their principality, was still resident 
in the English metropolis. This man was a Mahratta 
named Rungo Bapojee. Able and energetic, he had 
pushed his suit with a laborious, untiring conscien- 
tiousness, rarely seen in a Native envoy ; but though 
aided by much soundness of argument and much 
fluency of rhetoric expended by others than hired 
advocates, upon the case of the Sattarah Princes, he 
had failed to make an impression on their judges. 
Though of different race and different religion, these 
two men were knit together by common sympathies 
and kindred tasks, and in that autumn of 1853, by 
like failures and disappointments to brood over and 
the same bitter animosities to cherish. What was 
said and what was done between them no Historian 
can relate. They were adepts in the art of dissimula- 
tion. So the crafty Mahratta made such a good im- 
pression even upon those whom his suit had so 
greatly troubled, that his debts were paid for him, 
and he was sent back at the public expense to Bom- 
bay with money in his pocket from the Treasury of 
the India House ;* whilst the gay Mahomedan floated 
about the surface of society and made a conspicuous 
flgure at crowded watering-places, as if he dearly 
loved England and the English, and could not per- 

* Rungo Bapojee returned to India Company gave him 2500/, and 
India in December. 1853. The East a free passage. 



^.arnatic and tanjore. li { 

suacle himself to return to his own dreary and be- 1853. 
nighted land. 

So little material are they to this History that I Carnatic ai)r> 
need not write in detail of the circumstances attend- ^"J°^^* 
ing the extinction of the titular sovereignties of the 
Carnatic and Tanjore, two ancient Houses, one Ma- 
homedan, the other Hindoo, that had once flourished 
in the Southern Peninsula. Lord Wellesley had 
stripped them of territorial power. It remained, 
therefore, only for Lord Dalhousie, when the Newab 1854. 
of the Carnatic and the Rajah of Tanjore died with- 1S55. 
out heirs of the body, to abolish the titular dignities 
of the two Families and " to resume the large stipends 
they had enjoyed, as Lapses to Government." Pen- 
sions were settled upon the surviving members of 
the two Families ; but in each case, the head of the 
House made vehement remonstrance against the ex- 
tinction of its honours, and long and loudly cla- 
moured for restitution. There were many, doubt- 
less, in Southern India who still clung with feelings 
of veneration to these shadowy pageants, and de- 
plored the obliteration of the royal names that they 
had long honoured ; and as a part of the great sys- 
tem of demolition these resumptions made a bad im- 
pression m more remote places. But empty titular 
dignities are dangerous possessions, and it may be, 
after all, only mistaken kindness to perpetuate them 
when the substance of royalty is gone. 

\* In this chapter might have to increase, in some measure, tlis 

been included other cases of Lapse, feeling of insecurity in men's minds, 

as those of the Pergunnah, of Odei- they were comparatively of little po- 

poor, on the South-Western Fron- litical importance; and Lord Dal- 

tier, and of Jeitpore, in Bundle- housie did not think them worth a 

khund ; but, although every addi- paragraph in his Farewell Minute, 
tioual absorption of territory tended 



112 TUE ADMl^^SIKATION OF LORD OALHOUSIIi 



CHAPTER III. 

TV.H AyiJF.^ATION OF OUDE — EAELY HISTORY OF THE PROVINCE — THE TREATY 
OP 1801 — EPPECTS OP THE DOUBLE GOVERNMENT — CREATION OP THE 
KINGSHIP — PROGRESS OP MISRULE — REPEATED WARNINGS— THE UN- 
RATIFIED TREATY — COLONEL SLEEMAN's REPORTS — LORD DALHOUSIE's 
MINUTE — VIEWS OP THE COURT OF DIRECTORS — SIR JAMES OUTRAM 
RESIDENT — ANNEXATION PROCLAIMED. 

1856. There was still another province to be absorbed 

into the British Empire under the administration of 
Lord Dalhousie ; not by conquest, for its rulers had 
ever been our friends, and its people had recruited 
our armies ; not by lapse, for there had always been 
a son or a brother, or some member of the royal 
house, to fulfil, according to the Mahomedan law of 
succession, the conditions of heirship, and there was 
still a king, the son of a king, upon the throne ; but 
by a simple assertion of the dominant will of the 
British Government. This was the great province of 
Oude, in the very heart of Hindostan, which had long 
tempted us, alike by its local situation and the reputed 
wealth of its natural resources. 

It is a story not to be lightly told in a few sentences. 
Its close connexion with some of the more important 
passages of this history fully warrants some ampli- 
tude of narration. Before the British settler had esta- 
blished himself on the peninsula of India, Oude was 



EARLY CONNEXION WITH OUDE. 113 

a province of tlie Mogul Empire. When that empire 1756- 179G. 
was distracted and weakened by the invasion of 
Nadir Shah, the treachery of the servant was turned 
against the master, and little by little the Governor 
began to govern for himself. But holding only an 
official, though an hereditary title, he still acknow- 
ledged his vassalage -, and long after the Great Mogul 
had shrivelled into a pensioner and a pageant, the 
Newab-Wuaeer of Oude was nominally his minister. 

Of the earliest history of British connexion with 
the Court of the Wuzeer, it is not necessary to write 
in detail. There is nothing less creditable in the 
annals of the rise and progress of the British power 
in the East. The Newab had territory ; the Newab 
had subjects ; the Newab had neighbours ; more than 
all, the Newab had money. But although he pos- 
sessed in abundance the raw material of soldiers, he 
had not been able to organise an army sufficient for 
all the external and internal requirements of \h(i 
State, and so he was fain to avail himself of the 
superior military skill and discipline of the white 
men, and to hire British battalions to do his work. 
At first this w^as done in an irregular, desultory kind 
of way, job-work, as in the infamous case of the 
Rohilla massacre ; but afterwards it assumed a more 
formal and recognised shape, and solemn engagements 
were entered into with the Newab, by which we un- 
dertook, in consideration of certain money-payments, 
known as the Subsidy, to provide a certain number of 
British troops for the internal and external defence of 
his Excellency's dominions. 

In truth it was a vicious system, one that can 
hardly be too severely condemned. By it we esta- 
blished a Double Government of the Avorst kind. The 
Political and Military government was in the hands 

I 



114 THE ADIUmiSTRATIOX OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

i:OG. of the Company ; the internal administration of the 
Oude territories still rested with the Newab-Wuzeer. 
In other words, hedged in and protected by the 
British battalions, a bad race of Eastern Princes were 
suffered to do, or not to do, what they liked. Under 
such influences it is not strange that disorder of every 
kind ran riot over the whole length and breadth of 
the land. Never were the evils of misrule more hor- 
ribly apparent ; never were the vices of an indolent 
and rapacious Government productive of a greater 
sum of misery. The extravagance and profligacy of 
the Court were written in hideous characters on the 
desolated face of the country. It was left to the 
Nabob's Government to dispense justice : justice was 
not dispensed. It was left to the Nabob's Govern- 
ment to collect the revenue ; it was wrung from the 
people at the point of the bayonet. The Court was 
sumptuous and profligate ; the people poor and 
wretched. The expenses of the royal household were 
enormous. Hundreds of richly-caparisoned voracious 
elephants ate up the wealth of whole districts, or car- 
ried it in glittering apparel on their backs. A multitu- 
dinous throng of unserviceable attendants ; bands of 
dancing-girls ; flocks of parasites ; costly feasts and 
ceremonies ; folly and pomp and profligacy of every 
conceivable description, drained the cofl'ers of the 
State. A vicious and extravagant Government soon 
beget a poor and a sufi*ering people ; a poor and a 
sufl*ering people, in turn, perpetuate the curse of a 
bankrupt Government. The process of retaliation is 
sure. To support the lavish expenditure of the Court 
the mass of the people were persecuted and outraged. 
Bands of armed mercenaries were let loose upon the 
ryots in support of the rapacity of the Aumils, or 
Revenue-farmers, whose appearance was a terror to 



INTERVENTION OF LORD WELLESLEY. 115 

the people. Under such a system of cruelty and 1798. 
extortion, the country soon became a desert, and the 
Government then learnt by hard experience that the 
prosperity of the people is the only true source of 
wealth. The lesson was thrown away. The decrease 
of the revenue was not accompanied by a corre- 
sponding diminution of the profligate expenditure of 
the Court, or by any effort to introduce a better 
administrative system. Instead of this, every new 
year saw the unhappy country lapsing into worse dis- 
order, with less disposition, as time advanced, on the 
part of the local Government to remedy the evils be- 
neath which it was groaning. Advice, protestation, 
remonstrance were in vain. Lord Cornwallis advised, 
protested, remonstrated : Sir John Shore advised, 
protested, remonstrated. At last a statesman of a 
very different temper appeared upon the scene. 

Lord Wellesley was a despot in every pulse of his 
heart. But he was a despot of the right kind ; for 
he was a man of consummate vigour and ability, and 
he seldom made a mistake. The condition of Oude 
soon, attracted his attention ; not because its govern- 
ment was bad and its people were wretched, but be- 
cause that country might either be a bulwark of 
safety to our own dominions, or a sea of danger which 
might overflow and destroy us. That poor old blind 
ex-King, Shah Zemaun, of the Suddozye family of 
Caubul, known to the present generation as the feeble 
appendage of a feeble puppet, had been, a little while 
before the advent of Lord Wellesley, in the heyday of 
his pride and power, meditating great deeds which he 
had not the ability to accomplish, and keeping the 
British power in India in a chronic state of unrest. 
If ever there had been any real peril, it had passed 
away before the new century was a year old But it 

i2 



116 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1799. miglit arise again. Doubtless the military strength 
of the Afghans was marvellously overrated in those 
days ; but still there was the fact of a minacious Ma- 
homedan power beyond the frontier, not only medi- 
tating invasion, but stirring up the Mahomedan 
Princes of India to combine in a religious war against 
the usurping Feringhee. Saadut Ali was then on the 
musnud of Oude ; he was the creature and the friend 
of the English, but Vizier Ali, whom he had sup- 
planted, had intrigued with Zemaun Shah, and would 
not only have welcomed, but have subsidised also an 
Afghan force in his own dominions. At the bottom 
of all our alarm, at that time, were some not unrea- 
sonable apprehensions of the ambitious designs of the 
first Napoleon. At all events, it was sound policy to 
render Oude powerful for good and powerless for 
evil. To the accomplishment of this it was necessary 
that large bodies of ill- disciplined and irregularly 
paid native troops in the service of the Newab-Wuzeer 
— ^lawless bands that had been a terror alike to him 
and to his people — should be forthwith disbanded, 
and that British troops should occupy their place. 
Now, already the Wuzeer was paying seventy-six 
lakhs of rupees, or more than three-quarters of a 
million of money, for his subsidised British troops, 
and though he was willing to disband his own levies, 
and thereby to secure some saving to the State, it 
was but small in proportion to the expense of the 
more costly machinery of British military defence 
noAV to be substituted for them. The additional bur- 
den to be imposed upon Oude was little less than half 
a million of money, and the unfortunate Wuzeer, 
whose resources had been strained to the utmost to 
pay the previous subsidy, declared his inability to 
meet any further demands on his treasury. This was 



THE TREATY OF 1801. 117 

what Lord Wellesley expected — nay, more, it was 1800. 
what he wanted. If the Wuzeer could not pay in 
money, he could pay in money's worth. He had rich 
lands that might be ceded in perpetuity to the Com- 
pany for the punctual payment of the subsidy. So 
the Governor-General prepared a treaty ceding the 
required provinces, and with a formidable array of 
British troops at his call, dragooned the Wuzeer into 
sullen submission to the will of the English Sultan. 
The new treaty was signed ; and districts then yield- 
ing a million and a half of money, and now nearly 
double that amount of annual revenue, passed under 
the administration of the British Government. 

Now, this treaty — the last ever ratified between isoi, 
the two Governments — bound the Newab Wuzeer to 
^^ establish in his reserved dominions such a system of 
administration, to be carried on by his own officers, 
as should be conducive to the prosperity of his sub- 
jects, and be calculated to secure the lives and pro- 
perties of the inhabitants," and he undertook at the 
same time " always to advise with and to act in con- 
formity to the counsels of the officers of the East 
India Company." But the English ruler knew well 
that there was small hope of these conditions being 
fulfilled. "I am satisfied," he said, "that no effec- 
tual security can be provided against the ruin of the 
province of Oude until the exclusive management of 
the civil and military government of that country 
shall be transferred to the Company under suitable 
provisions for the maintenance of his Excellency and 
his family." He saw plainly before him the break- 
down of the whole system, and believed that in the 
course of a few years the entire administration of the 
province would be transferred to the hands of our 
British officers. There was one thing, however, on 



118 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1801-17. wliich he did not calculate — the moderation of his 
successors. He lived nearly half a century after 
these words were written, and yet the treaty outlived 
him by many years. 

If there was, a,t any time, hope for Oude, under 
purely native administration, it was during the 
wuzeership of Saadut Ali, for he was not a bad man, 
and he appears to have had rather enlightened views 
with res^Dect to some important administrative ques- 
tions.* But the opportunity was lost \ and whilst 
the counsels of our British officers did nothing for the 
people, the bayonets of our British soldiers restrained 
them from doing anything for themselves. Thus 
matters grew from bad to worse, and from worse to 
worst. One Governor-General followed another ; one 
Resident followed another ; one Wuzeer followed an- 
other: but still the great tide of evil increased in 
volume, in darkness, and in depth. 

But, although the Newab-Wuzeers of Oude were, 
doubtless, bad rulers and bad men, it must be ad- 
mitted that they were good allies. False to their people 
— false to their own manhood — they were true to the 
British Government. They were never known to break 
out into open hostility, or to smoulder in hidden trea- 
chery against us; and they rendered good service, when 
they could, to the Power to which they owed so little. 
They supplied our armies, in time of war, with grain , 
ihey supplied us with carriage- cattle; better still, 
they supplied us with cash. There was money in the 

* Sir Henry Lawrence says that to the resentment he felt for liis 
Le was "in advance of the Bengal own wrongs, and the bitterness of 
Government of the day on revenue soul with which he must liave re- 
arrangements," and gives two strik- ceived all advice from his oppressors, 
ing instances of the fact. With cha- no less than to tiie impunity with 
racteristic candour and impartiality, which they enabled liiin to play the 
Lawrence adds that Saadut All's tyrant," — Calcutta Revieic^ vol, iii. 
mal-administration was " mainly at- See also Lawrence's Essajs, in whici 
tfibutable to English interference, this paper is printed. 



PROGRESSIVE MISRULE. 119 

Treasury of Lucknow, when there was none in the 18I7. 
Treasury of Calcutta; and the time came when the 
Wuzeer s cash was needed by the British ruler. En- 
gaged in an extensive and costly war, Lord Hastings 
wanted more millions for the prosecution of his great 
enterprises. They were forthcoming at the right 
time ; and the British Government were not un- 
willino; in exchano;e to testow both titles and terri- 
tories on the Wuzeer. The times were propitious. 
The successful close of the Nepaul war placed at our 
disposal an unhealthy and impracticable tract of 
country at the foot of the Hills. This " terai" ceded 
to us by the Nepaulese was sold for a million of 
money to the Wuzeer, to whose domains it was con- 
tiguous, and he himself expanded and bloomed into 
a Kino; under the fostering sun of British favour and 
affection.* The interest of the other ^million was paid 
away by our Government to a tribe of Oude pen- 
sioners, who were not sorry to exchange for a British 
guarantee the erratic benevolence of their native 
masters. 

It Avould take long to trace the history of the pro- 
gressive misrule of the Oude dominions under a suc- 
cession of sovereigns all of the same class — ^passive 
permitters of evil rather than active perpetrators of 
iniquity, careless of, but not rejoicing in, the suffer- 
ings of their people. The rulers of Oude, whether 
Wuzeers or Kings, had not the energy to be tyrants. 

* Sir John Malcolm said that the rence seems to have thought that 

very mention of *' his Majesty of this was precisely what was in* 

Oude" made liim sick. "Would I tended. "The Newab Ghazee-ood- 

make," he said, " a golden calf, and deen Hyder," he wrote, " was en- 

sufTer him to throw off his subordi- couraged to assume the title of 

nate title, and assume equality with King; Lord Hastings calculated on 

the degraded representative of a line this exciting a rivalry between the 

of monarchs to whom his ancestors Oude and Delhi Families. " — Cal 

liave been for ages really or nomi- cuita Revieu\ vol. iii. ; and Essays. 

ually subject?" Sir Henry Law- page 119. 



120 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIR 

1 917. They simply allowed tilings to take their course. 
Sunk in voluptuousness and pollution, often too hor- 
ribly revolting to be described, they gave themselves 
up to the guidance of pandars and parasites, and 
cared not so long as these wretched creatures admi- 
nistered to their sensual appetites. Affairs of State 
were pushed aside as painful intrusions. Corruption 
stalked openly abroad. Every one had his price. 
Place, honour, justice — everything was to be bought. 
Fiddlers and barbers, pimps and mountebanks, be- 
came great functionaries. There were high revels at 
the capital, whilst, in the interior of the country, 
every kind of enormity was being exercised to wring 
from the helpless people the money which supplied 
the indulgences of the Court. Much of the land was 
farmed out to large contractors, who exacted every 
possible farthing from the cultivators ; and were not 
seldom, upon complaint of extortion, made, unless 
inquiry were silenced by corruption, to disgorge 
into the royal treasury a large portion of their gains. 
Murders of the most revolting type, gang-robberies 
of the most outrageous character, were committed in 
open day. There were no Courts of Justice except at 
Lucknow ; no Police but at the capital and on the 
frontier. The British troops were continually called 
out to coerce refractory landholders, and to stimulate 
revenue-collection at the point of the bayonet. The 
sovereign — Wuzeer or King — knew that they would 
do their duty ; knew that, under the obligations of the 
treaty, his authority would be supported ; and so he 
lay secure in his Zenana, and fiddled whilst his coun- 
try was in flames. 

And so years passed ; and ever went there from the 
Residency to the Council-chamber of the Supreme 
Government the same unvarying story of frightful 
misrule. Residents expostulated, Governors- Genera] 



LORD WILLLUI BENTINCK AT LUCKNOW. 121 

protested against it. The protests in due course be- 1831 
came threats. Time after time it was announced to 
the rulers of Oude that, unless some great and imme- 
diate reforms were introduced into the system of 
administration, the British Government, as lords- 
paramount, would have no course left to them but 
to assume the direction of affairs, and to reduce the 
sovereign of Oude to a pensioner and a pageant. 

By no man was the principle of non-interference 
supported more strenuously, both in theory and in 
practice, than by Lord William Bentinck. But in 
the affairs of this Oude State he considered that he 
was under a righteous necessity to interfere. In April, 
1831, he visited Lucknow ; and there, distinctly and 
emphatically told the King that " unless his terri- 
tories were governed upon other principles than those 
hitherto followed, and the prosperity of the people 
made the principal object of his administration, the 
precedents afforded by the principalities of the Car- 
natic and Tanjore would be applied to the kingdom 
of Oude, and to the entire management of the coini- 
try, and the King would be transmuted into a State 
prisoner." This was no mere formal harangue, but 
the deliberate enunciation of the Government of 
India ; and to increase the impression which it was 
calculated to make on the mind of the King, the 
warning was afterwards communicated to him in 
writing. But, spoken or written, the words were of 
no avail. He threw himself more than ever into the 
arms of parasites and pandars ; plunged more deeply 
into debauchery than before, and openly violated all 
decency by appearing drunk in the public streets of 
Lucknow.* With the corruption of the Court the 

* This was Nussur-ood-deenHyder tive merits. Colonel Slecman seems 

— tlie second of the Oude kings, and to have thought that he might have 

perhaps the worst. I speak du- extracted more good out of Nussur- 

biously, however, of their compara- ocd-dccn than out of any of the rest. 



122 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1S31. disorders of the country increased. The crisis seemed 
now to have arrived. A communication was made 
to the Court of Oude, that " instructions to assume 
the government of the country, if circumstances 
should render such a measure necessary, had arrived, 
and that their execution was suspended merely in the 
hope that the necessity of enforcing them might be 
obviated." 

But in what manner was the administration to be 
assumed — in what manner was the improvement of 
the country to be brought about by the intervention 
of the British Government? There were different 
courses open to us, and they were all diligently consi- 
dered. We might appoint a Minister of our own 
selection, and rule through him by the agency of the 
Resident. We might depose the ruling sovereign, 
and set up another and more hopeful specimen of 
royalty in his place. We might place the country 
under European administration, giving all the sur- 
plus revenues to the King. We might assume the 
entire government, reducing the King to a mere 
titular dignitary, and giving him a fixed share of the 
annual revenues. Or we might annex the country 
outright, giving him so many lakhs of rupees a year, 
without reference to the revenues of the principality. 
The ablest and most experienced Indian statesmen of 
the day had been invited to give their opinions. 
Malcolm and Metcalfe spoke freely out. The first of 
the above schemes seemed to -represent the mildest 
form of interference ; but both the soldier and the 
civilian unhesitatingly rejected it as the most odious, 
and, in practice, the most ruinous of all interposi- 
tion. Far better, they said, to set up a new King, or 
even to assume the government for ourselves. But 
those were days when native dynasties were not con- 
sidered unmixed evils, «.nd native institutions were not 



MODERATION OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. 123 

pure aborainations in our eyes. And it was tliouglit iS-^i? 
that we might assume the administration of Oude, but 
not for ourselves. It was thought that the British 
Government might become the guardian and trustee 
of the King of Oude, administer his aifairs through 
native agency and in accordance with native institu- 
tions, and pay every single rupee into the royal trea- 
sury. 

This was the scheme of Lord William Bentinck, a 
man of unsurpassed honesty and justice ; and it met 
with favourable acceptance in Leadenh all-street. The 
Court of Directors at that time, true to the old tradi- 
tions of the Company, were slow to encourage their 
agents to seek pretexts for the extension of their 
dominions. The despatches which they sent out to 
India were for the most part distinguished by a 
praiseworthy moderation ; sometimes, indeed, by a 
noble frankness and sincerity, which showed that the 
authors of them were above all disguises and pre- 
tences. They now looked the Oude business fairly 
in the face, but hoping still against hope that there 
might be some amelioration, they suffered, after the 
receipt of Lord AVilliam Bentinck's report, a year to 
pass away, and then another year, before issuing 
authoritative orders, and then they sent forth a 
despatch, which was intended to bring the wliole , , 
question to a final issue. They spoke of the feelings 1834 
which the deplorable situation of a country so long 
and so nearly connected with them had excited in 
their minds — of the obligations which such a state of 
things imposed upon them — of the necessity of find- 
ing means of effecting a great alteration. They ac- 
knowledged, as they had acknowledged before, that 
our connexion with the country had largely contri- 
buted to the sufferings of the people, inasmuch as it 
had afforded protection to tyranny, and rendered 



124 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1834. hopeless the resistance of the oppressed.* This made 
it the more incumbent upon them to adopt measures 
for the mitigation, if not the removal, of the existing 
evil. They could not look on whilst the ruin of the 
country was consummated. It was certain that some- 
thing must be done. But what was that something 
to be ? Then they set in array before them, some- 
what as I have done above, the different measures 
which might be resorted to, and, dwelling upon the 
course which Bentinck had recommended, placed in 
the hands of the Governor-General a discretionary 
power to carry the proposed measure into effect at 
such period, and in such a manner as might seem 
advisable, but with the utmost possible consideration 
for the King, whose consent to the proposed arrange- 
ment was, if possible, to be obtained. It was sug- 
2;ested that all the titles and honours of sovereio'ntv 
should remain with his Majesty as before ; that the 
revenues should be mainly expended in the adminis- 
tration and the improvement of the country, and 
that either the surplus, or a fixed stipend, should be 
assigned to the King. But, at the same time, the 
Government were instructed, in the event of their 
proceeding to assume the administration of the coun- 
try, distinctly to announce that, so soon as the neces- 
sary reforms should have been effected, the admi- 
nistration of the country, as in the case of Nagpore, 
would be restored to its native rulers. 

Colonel John Low, of whose character and career 
I have already spoken, was then Resident at Luck- 

* For a long time, as we have vengeance.'* This scandal no longer 

said, our troops were employed by existed ; but our battalions were 

the King's officers to aid them in the still stationed in the country, ready 

collection of the revenue; thereby to dragoon down any open insur- 

active, as tiie Court frankly described rection that might result from the 

it, as " instruments of extortion and niisgovernment of Oude. 



VIEWS OF COLONEL LOW. 125 

now. The despatch of the Court of Dh^ectors, autho- 1S35. 
rising the temporary assumption of the Government 
of Oude, was communicated to him, and he pondered 
over its contents. The scheme appeared in his eyes 
to be distinguished by its moderation and humanity, 
and to be one of a singularly disinterested character. 
But he was convinced that it would be misunderstood. 
He said that, however pure the motives of the British 
Government might be, the natives of India would 
surely believe that we had taken the country for our- 
selves. So he recommended the adoption of another 
method of obtaining the same end. Fully impressed 
with the necessity of removing the reigning King, 
Nussur-ood-deen, he advised the Government to set 
up another ruler in his place ; and in order that 
the measure might be above all suspicion, to abstain 
from receiving a single rupee, or a single acre of 
ground, as the price of his elevation. " What I re- 
commend is this," he said, " that the next heir should 
be invested with the full powers of sovereignty ; and 
that the people of Oude should continue to live under 
their own institutions." He had faith in the charac- 
ter of that next heir ; he believed that a change of 
men would produce a change of measures ; and, at all 
events, it was but bare justice to try the experiment. 
But, before anything had been done by the Go- 
vernment of India, in accordance vnth the discretion 
delegated to them by the Court of Directors, the ex- 
periment which Low had suggested inaugurated itself 
Not without suspicion of poison, but really, I believe, 
killed only by strong drink, Nussur-ood-deen Hyder 
died on a memorable July night. It was a crisis of 1S37. 
no common magnitude, for there was a disputed suc- 
cession ; and large bodies of lawless native troops in 
Lucknow were ready to strike at a moment's notice. 



126 THE ADMlNISTPwATION OF LORD DALHOUSIF. 

ISS7. The cool courage of Low and his assistants saved the 
city from a deluge of blood. An uncle of the deceased 
Prince — an old man and a cripple, respectable in his 
feebleness — was declared King, with the consent of 
the British Government ; and the independence of 
Oude had another lease of existence. 

Lord Auckland was, at that time, Governor-General 
of India. The new King, who could not but feel 
that he was a creature of the British, pledged himself 
to sign a new treaty. And soon it was laid before 
him. That the engagements of the old treaty had 
been violated, day after day, year after year, for more 
than a third part of a century, was a fact too patent 
to be questioned. The misgovernment of the coun- 
try was a chronic breach of treaty. Whether the 
British or the Oude Government were more respon- 
sible for it was somewhat doubtfal to every clear 
understanding and every unprejudiced mind. The 
source of the failure was in the treaty itself, which 
the author of it well knew from the first was one of 
impossible fulfilment. But it was still a breach of 
treaty, and there was another in the entertainment 
of vast numbers of soldiers over and above the stipu- 
lated allowance. Those native levies had gradually 
swollen, according to Resident Low's calculations, to 
the bulk of seventy thousand men. Here was an evil 
not to be longer permitted ; wonder, indeed, was it 
that it should have been permitted so long. This the 
new treaty was to remedy ; no less than the continued 
mal-administration of the country by native agency. 
It provided, therefore, that in the event of any fur- 
ther - protracted misrule, the British Government 
should be entitled to appoint its own officers to the 
management of any part, small or great, of the pro- 
vince ; that the old native levies should be aban- 



THE DISALLOWED TREATT. 127 

dcJQed, and a new force, commanded by British 1S37. 
officers, organised in its place, at the cost of the Oude 
Government. But there was no idea of touching, in 
any other way, the revenues of the country. An 
account was to be rendered of every rupee received 
and expended, and the balance was to be paid punc- 
tually into the Oude Treasury. 

This was the abortion, often cited in later years as 
the Oude Treaty of 1837. Authentic history recites 
that the Government of India were in throes with it, 
but the strangling hand of higher authority crushed 
all life out of the thing before it had become a fact. 
The treaty was wholly and absolutely disallowed by 
the Home Government.* They took especial excep- 
tion to the establishment of the new auxiliary force, 
which was to cost the Oude Treasury sixteen lakhs 
of rupees a year ; for, with all the pure logic of 
honesty, they said that the treaty of 1801 had made 
it compulsory on the British Government to provide 
for the defence of the countr}^, and that a large tract 
of territory had been ceded with the express object of 
securing the payment of the troops necessary for this 
purpose. If, then, it were expedient to organise a 
fresh force under British officers, it was for the Com- 
pany, not for the Oude Government, to defray the 
expenses of the new levy. But not only on these 
grounds did they object to the treaty. It is true 
that, a few years before, they had given the Governor- 
General discretionary power to deal, as he thought 
best, with the disorders of Oude, even to the extent 
of a temporary assumption of the government ; but 
this authority had been issued at a time when Nussur- 
ood-deen, of whose vicious incapacity they had had 

♦ That is to say, by the Secret Committee, who had, by Act of Par- 
liament, special powers in this matter of Treaty-making. 



128 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1838. many years' experience, sat upon the throne; ana 
the Home Government were strongly of opinion that 
the new King, of whose character they had received 
a favourable account, ought to be allowed a fair 
trial, under the provisions of the treaty existing at 
the time of his accession to the throne. They there- 
fore directed the abrogation, not of any one article, 
but of the entire treaty. Wishing, however, the 
annulment of the treaty to appear rather as an act of 
grace from the Government of India than as the result 
of positive and unconditional instructions from Eng- 
land, they gave a large discretion to the Governor- 
General as to the mode of announcing this abrogation 
to the Court of Lucknow. 

The receipt of these orders disturbed and perplexed 
the Govern or- General. Arrangements for the orga- 
nisation of the Oude auxiliary force had already ad- 
vanced too far to admit of the suspension of the 
measure. It was a season, however, of difficulty and 
supposed danger, for the seeds of the Afghan war had 
been sown. Some, at least, of our regular troops in 
Oude were wanted to do our o^vn work ; so, in any 
view of the case, it was necessary to fill their places. 
The Auxiliary Force, therefore, was not to be arrested 
in its formation, but it was to be maintained at the 
Company's expense. Intimation to this effect was 
given to the King in a letter from the Governor- 
General, which, after acquainting his Majesty that 
the British Government had determined to relieve 
him of a burden which, in the existing state of the 
country, might have imposed heavier exactions on 
the people than they were well able to bear, ex- 
pressed a strong hope that the King would see, m 
the relaxation of this demand, good reason for apply- 
ing his surplus revenues firstly to the relief of op- 



ABROGATION OF THE TREATY. 129 

pressive ^..ixation, and, secondly, to the prosecution jssA. 
of useful public works. But nothing was said, in 
this letter, about the abrogation of the entire treaty, 
nor was it desired that the Resident, in his con- 
ferences with the King or his minister, should say 
anything on that subject. The Governor-General, 
still hoping that the Home Government might be in- 
duced to consent to the terms of the treaty (the con- 
dition of the auxiliary force alone excluded), ab- 
stained from an acknowledgment which, he believed, 
AYould weaken the authority of his Government. But 
this was a mistake, and worse than a mistake. It 
betrayed an absence of moral courage not easily to 
be justified or forgiven. The Home Government 
never acknowledged the validity of any later treaty 
than that which Lord Wellesley had negotiated at 
the commencement of the century. 

Such is the history of the treaty of 1837. It was 
never carried out in a single particular, and seldom 
heard of again until after a lapse of nearly twenty 
years, except in a collection of treaties into which it 
crept by mistake.* And, for some time, indeed, 

* Much was attempted to be tlie Commissioners for the affairs of 
made out of this circumstance — but India. (Signed) "R,. Gordon. 
the mistake of an under Secretary " India Board, 3rd July, 1838." 
cannot give validity to a treaty It must, however, be admitted, on 
which the highest authorities refused the other hand, that, years after 
to ratify. If Lord Auckland was un- this date, even in the Lucknow 
willing to declare the nullity of the Residency, the treaty was held to be 
treaty because its nullification hurt valid. In October, 1853, Colonel 
the pride of his Government, the Sleeman wrote to Sir James Hogg : 
Home Government showed no such "The treaty of 1837 gives our Go- 
unwillingness, for, in 1838, tlie fol- vernnient ample authority to take 
lowing return was made to Parlia- the whole administration on our- 
ment, under the signature of one of selves," And again, in 1854, to 
the Secretaries of the Board of Con- Colonel Low : " Our Government 
trol : would be fully authorised at any 

"Tliere has been no treaty con- time to enforce the penalty pre- 

vied with thepresent King of Oude, scribed in your treaty of 1837." 

'h has been ratified by the Court This was doubly a mistake. The 

•ectors, with the approbation of treaty was certainly not Low's. 



130 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1838-46. little was heard of Oude itself. A Native State is 
never so near to death, but that it may become quite 
hale and lusty again when the energies and activities 
of the British are engrossed by a foreign war. Now, 
it happened that, for some time to come, the British 
had quite a crop of foreign wars. First, the great 
Afghanistan war of Auckland, which made him 
wholly forgetful of Oude — her People and her King 
— ^her sorrows and her sensualities. Then there was 
the Sindh war of EUenborough, intended to wash out 
by a small victory the stain of a great defeat, but 
fixing a still deeper stain upon the character of the 
nation ; and next the fierce Mahratta onslaught, which 
followed closely upon it. Then there was the inva- 
sion from beyond the Sutlej, and the first Sikh war, 
in which Hardingc was most reluctantly immersed. 
Altogether, some eight years of incessant war, with a 
prospect of further strife, kept the sword out of the 
scabbard and the portfolio out of the hand. Then 
Oude was safe in its insignificance and obscurity. 
Moreover, Oude was, as before, loyal and sympa- 
thising, and, although the hoardings of Saadut Ali 
had long since been squandered, there was still 
money in the Treasure-chests of Lucknow. But 
peace came, and with it a new birth of danger to the 
rulers of that misruled province. There had been no 
change for the better ; nay, rather there had been 
change for the worse, during the years of our con- 
flicts beyond the frontier. One Prince had succeeded 
another only to emulate the vices of his ancestors with 
certain special variations of his own. And when 
Lord Hardinge, in the quiet interval between the two 

1817. Sikh wars, turned his thoughts towards the kingdom 
of Oude, he found Wajid Ali Shah, then a young 
man in the first year of his reign, giving foul pro 



LORD HARDINGE S WARNINGS. 131 

mise of sustaining tlie character of the Royal 1317. 
House.* 

With the same moderation as had been shown by 
Lord William Bentinck, but also with the same 
strong sense of the paramount duty of the British 
Government to arrest the disorders which had so 
long been preying upon the vitals of the country, 
Lord Hardinge lifted up his voice in earnest remon- 
strance and solemn warning; and the young Kin^^- 
cowered beneath the keen glance of the clear blue 
eyes that were turned upon him. There were no 
vague words in that admonition ; no uncertain sound 
in their utterance. Wajid Ali Shah was distinctly 
told that the clemency of the British Government 
would allow him two years of grace ; but that if at 
the end of that period of probation there were no 
manifest signs of improvement, the British Govern- 
ment could, in the interests of humanity, no longer 
righteously abstain from interfering peremptorily and 
absolutely for the introduction of a system of admi- 
nistration calculated to restore order and prosperity to 
the kingdom of Oude. The discretionary power had 
years before been placed in the hands of the Governor- 
General, and these admonitions failing, it would as- 
suredly be exercised. A general outline of the means, 
by which the administration might be reformed, was 
laid down in a memorandum read aloud to the King ; 
and it was added that, if his Majesty cordially en- 
tered into the plan, he might have the satisfaction, 

* There was somethinp^ in the liope of an improved administration, 

number seven fatal to the Princes of But^ capax imperii nisi imperasset, he 

Oude. Ghazee-ood-deen Hyder died was, for all purposes of government, 

in 1827 ; Nussur-ood-deen in 1837 ; as incompetent as his predecessors, 

and Umjid Ali Shall in 1847. The His besetting infirmity was avarice, 

last named succeeded, in 1S42, the and he seemed to care for nothing 

old King, whom we had set up, and so long as the treasure-chest was 

from whose better character there full, 
appeared at one time to be some 

k2 



132 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

847. ■\vitliin the specified period of two years, of checking 
and eradicating the worst abuses, and, at the same 
time, of maintaining his own authority and the native 
institutions of his kingdom unimpaired — but that if 
he should adhere to his old evil wa}^s, he must be 
prepared for the alternative and its consequences. 

Nervous and excitable at all times, and greatly 
affected by these w^ords, the King essayed to speak ; 
but the power of utterance had gone from him. So 
he took a sheet of paper and wrote upon it, that he 
thanked the Governor- General, and would regard his 
counsels as though they had been addressed by a 
father to his son. There are no counsels so habitually 
disregarded ; the King, therefore, kept his word. 
Relieved from the presence of the Governor-General 
his agitation subsided, and he betook himself, without 
a thought of the future, to his old courses. Fiddlers 
and dancers, singing men and eunuchs, were suffered 
to usurp the government and to absorb the revenues 
of the country. The evil influence of these vile 
panders and parasites was felt throughout all condi- 
tions of society and in all parts of the country. Sunk 
in the uttermost abysses of enfeebling debauchery, 
the King pushed aside the business which he felt 
himself incapable of transacting, and went in search 
of new pleasures. Stimulated to the utmost by un- 
natural excitements, his appetites were satiated by 
the debaucheries of the Zenana, and, with an under- 
standing emasculated to the point of childishness, he 
turned to the more harmless delights of dancing, and 
drumming, and drawing, and manufacturing small 
rhymes. Had he devoted himself to these pursuits 
in private life, there would have been small harm in 
them, but overjoyed with his success as a musician, 
he went about the crowded streets of Lucknow with 



RErJllEVE FOR WAJID ALL 133 

a big drum round his neck, striking as much noise 1849. 
out of it as he could, with all the extravagance of 
childish dehght. 

The two years of probation had passed away, and • 
the British Resident reported that " the King had 
not, since the Governor- General's visit in October, 
1847, shown any signs of being fully aware of the 
responsibihty he incurred." " In fact," he added, " I 
do not think that his Majesty can ever be brought to 
feel the responsibilities of sovereignty strongly enough 
to be induced to bear that portion of the burden of its 
duties that must necessarily devolve upon him; he will 
always confide it to the Avorthless minions who are 
kept for his amusements, and enjoy exclusively his 
society and his confidence." So the time had arrived 
when the British Government might have righteously 
assumed the administration of Oude, The King had 
justly incurred the penalty, but the paramount power 
was in no haste to inflict it. Lord Dalhousie was 
Governor-General of India; but again the external 
conflicts of the British were the salvation of the sove- 
reignty of Oude. The Punjab was in flames, and once 
more Lucknow was forgotten. The conquest of the 
Sikhs; the annexation of their country; the new 
Burmese war and its results; the lapses of which I 
have spoken in my last chapter; and many impor- 
tant affkirs of internal administration of which I have 
yet to speak, occupied the ever-active mind of Lord 
Dalhousie until the last year of his reign ; but it was 
felt by every one, who knew and pondered over the 
'wretched state of the country, that the day of reckon- 
ing was approaching, and that the British Govern- 
ment could not much lono-er shrink from the 
performance of a duty imposed upon it by every 
consideration of humanity. 



134 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALIIOUSIE. 

IS49-50. Colonel Sleeman was then Resident at Lucknow. 

He was a man of a liberal and humane nature, tho- 
roughly acquainted with the character and feelings, 
the institutions and usages of the people of India. 
No man had a larger toleration for the short-comings 
of native Governments, because no one knew better 
how much our own political system had aggravated, 
if they had not produced, the evils of which we most 
complained. But he sympathised at the same time 
acutely with the suiFerings of the people living under 
those native Governments; and his sympathy over- 
came his toleration. Having lived all his adult life 
in India — tlie greater part of it in, or on the borders 
of, the Native States — he was destitute of all over- 
weening prepossessions in favour of European insti- 
tutions and the "blessings of British rule." But the 
more he saAV, on the spot, of the terrible effects of the 
misgovernment of Oude, the more convinced he was 
of the paramount duty of the British Government to 
step in and arrest the atrocities which were converting 
one of the finest provinces of India into a moral pest- 
house. In 1849 and 1850 he made a tour through 
the interior of the country. He carried with him the 
prestige of a name second to none in India, as that 
of a friend of the poor, a protector of the weak, and 
a redresser of their wrongs. Conversing freely and 
familiarly in the native languages, and knowing weU 
the character and the feelings of the people, he had a 
manner that inspired confidence, and the art of ex- 
tracting from every man the information which he was 
best able to afford. During this tour in the interior, 
he noted down, from day to day, all the most striking 
facts which were brought to his notice, with the re* 
flections which were suggested by them ; and the 
whole presented a revolting; picture of the worst type 



COLONEL SLEEMAN. 135 

of misrule^of a feebleness worse tlian despotism, of 1850. 
an apathy more productive of human suffering than 
the worst forms of tyrannous activity. In the absence 
of all controlling authority, the strong carried on 
everywhere a war of extermination against the weak. 
Powerful families, waxing gross on outrage and rapine, 
built forts, collected followers, and pillaged and mur- 
dered at discretion, without fear of justice overtaking 
their crimes. Nay, indeed, the greater the criminal 
the more sure he Avas of protection, for he could pur- 
chase immunity with his spoil. There was hardly, 
indeed, an atrocity committed, from one end of the 
country to the other, that was not, directly or indi- 
rectly, the result of the profligacy and corruption of 
the Court.* 

Such was Colonel Sleeman's report of the state of 
the Oude country ; such was his account of what he 
had seen with his own eyes or heard with his own 
ear&. There was not a man in the Two Services who 
was more distressed by the fury for annexation which 

* " The Talookdars keep the a day has passed since I left Luck- 
country in a perpetual state of dis- now, in which I iiave not had abun- 
t^irbance, and render life, property, dant proof of numerous atrocities of 
and industry, everywhere insecure, tliis kind committed by landholders 
Wlienever they quarrel with each within the district tlirough which I 
other, or with the local authorities was passing, year by year, up to the 
of the Government, from whatever present day." And again : " It is 
cause, they take to indiscriminate wortliy of remark that these great 
plunder and murder— over all lands landholders, who have recently ac- 
not held by men of the same class — quired tlieir possessions by the plun- 
no road, town, village, or hamlet, is der and the murder of their weaker 
secure from their merciless attacks neighbours, and who continue their 
— robbery and murder become their system of plunder in order to ac- 
diversion, their sport, and they think quire the means to maintain their 
no more of taking the lives of men, gangs and add to their possessions, 
women, and children, who never are those who are most favoured at 
offended them, than those of deer Court, and most conciliated by the 
and wild hogs. They not only rob local rulers, because they are more 
and murder, but seize, confine, and able and more willing to pay for the 
torture all whom they seize, and favour of the one and set at defiance 
suppose to have money or credit, till the authority of the other." — Slee- 
they ransom themselves with all they man's Diary. 
have, or can beg or borrow. Hardly 



136 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1852, was at that time breaking out in the most influential 
public prints and the highest official circles. He saw 
clearly the danger into which this grievous lust of 
dominion was hurrying us, and he made a great effort 
to arrest the evil;* but he lifted up a warning voice 
in vain. The letters which he addressed to the Go- 
vernor-General and to the Chairman of the East India 
Company appear to have produced no effect. He did 
not see clearly, at that time, that the principles Avhich 
he held in such abhorrence were cherished by I.ord 
Dalhousie himself, and he did not know that the Court 
of Directors had such faith in their Governor- General 
that they were content to substitute his principles for 
their own. But, utterly distasteful to him as were the 
then prevailing sentiments in favour of absorption and 
confiscation, Sleeman never closed his eyes against the 
fact that interference in the affairs of Oude, even to 
the extent of the direct assumption of the government, 
would be a righteous interference. Year after year he 
had pressed upon the Governor- General the urgent 
necessity of the measure. But, perhaps, had he known 
in what manner his advice was destined to be followed, 
and how his authority would be asserted in justifica- 

♦ See Sleeman's Correspondence, danf^erous to our riue in India, and 

passim. Exempli gratia: "In Sep- prejudicial to the best interests of 

tember, 1848, I took the liberty to tlie country. The ptople see that 

mention to your Lordship my tears these annexations and confiscations 

that the system of annexing and go on, and that rewards and honorary 

absorbing Native States — so popular distinctions are given for them anij 

with our Indian Services, and so for the victories which lead to them, 

much advocated by a certain class and for little else; and they are too 

of writers in public journals — might apt to infer that they are systematic 

some day render us too visibly de- and encouraged and prescribed from 

pendent upon our Native Army ; that home. The Native States I consider 

ihey might see it, and that accidents to be breakwaters, and when they 

might occur to unite them, or too are all swept away we shall be left 

great a portion of them, in some des- to the mercy of our Native Army, 

perate act." — {Colonel Sleeman to which may not always be sufficiently 

Lord Dalhousie, April, 1852.) And under our control." — Colonel Ski- man 

again : *' I deem such doctrines to be to Sir James Hogg, January, 1853. 



sleeman's warnings. 157 

tion of an act which he could never countenance, he 1852. 
would rather have suffered the feeble-minded de- 
bauchee who was called King of Oude still to remain 
in undisturbed possession of the throne, than have 
uttered a Avord that might hasten a measure so at 
variance with his sense of justice, and so injurious as 
h ought to our best interests, as that of which 
the interference of Government eventually took the 
shape. 

Sleeman's advice had been clear, consistent, unmis- 
takable. ^'Assume the administration," he said, "but 
do not grasp the revenues of the country." Some 
years before the same advice had been given by Henry 
La^vrence,* between whom and Sleeman there was 
nuich concord of opinion and some simihtude of cha- 
racter. The private letters of the latter, addressed 
to the highest Indian functionaries, and, therefore, 
having all the weight and authority of public docu- 
ments, were as distinct upon this point as the most 
emphatic words could make them. " What the people 
want, and most earnestly pray for," he wrote to the 
Governor-General, "is that our Government should 
take upon itself the responsibility of governing them 
well and permanently. All classes, save the knaves, 
who now surround and govern the King, earnestly 
pray for this — the educated classes, because they would 
then have a chance of respectable employment, which 
none of them now have ; the middle classes, because 
they find no protection or encouragement, and no 
hope that their children will be permitted to inherit 

* "Let the management," he said, (The italics are Lawrence's.) "Let 

" be assumed under some such rules Oude be at last governed, not for one 

as those which were laid down by man, the King, but for him and his 

Lord William Bentinck. Let the people." — Calcutta Review, vol. iii, 

administration of the country, as far (1845) ; and Lawrence's Essays, p. 

as possible, be native. Let not a 132. 
rupee come into the Company' » coffers.^' 



138 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1853. the property they leave, not invested in our Govern- 
ment Securities ; and the humbler classes, because 
they are now abandoned to the merciless rapacity of 
the starving troops and other public establishments, 
and of the landholders driven or invited to rebellion 
by the present state of misrule." But he added : " I 
believe that it is your Lordship's wish that the whole 
of the revenues of Oude should be expended for the 
benefit of the Royal Family and People of Oude, and 
that the British Government should disclaim any wish 
to derive any pecuniary advantage from assuming to 
itself the administration." And again, about the same 
time, he had written to the Chairman of the Court of 
Directors, urging the expediency of assuming the ad- 
ministration, but adding : " If we do this, we must, in 
order to stand well with the rest of India, honestly 
and distinctly disclaim all interested motives, and 
appropriate the whole of the revenues for the benefit 
of the People and Royal Family of Oude. If we do 
this, all India will think us right." And again, a few 
months later, Avriting to the same high authority, he 
said, mournfully and prophetically, that to annex and 
confiscate the country, and to appropriate the reve- 
nues to ourselves, would "be most profitable in a 
pecuniary view, but most injurious in a political one. 
It would tend to accelerate the crisis which the doc- 
trines of the absorbing school must sooner or later 
bring upon us."* 

Such was the counsel Sleeman gave ; such were the 
warnings he uttered. But he did not remain in India, 
nay, indeed he did not live, to see his advice ignored, 
his cautions disregarded. After long years of arduous 
and honourable service, compelled to retire in broken 

* Private correspondence of Sir of the English edition of his " Diary 
W. H. Sleeman, printed at the end in Oude." 



JAIklES OUTRAM. 139 

health from his post, he died on his homeward voyage, 1S53. 
leaving behind him a name second to none upon the 
roll of the benefactors and civilisers of India, for he 
had grappled with her greatest abomination, and had Thuggee, 
effectually subdued it. Some solace had it been to 
him when he turned his back upon the country to 
know that his place would be well and worthily filled. 
" Had your Lordship left the choice of a successor to 
me," he wrote to the Governor- General, "I should 
have pointed out Colonel Outram ; and I feel very 
much rejoiced that he has been selected for the office, 
and I hope he will come as soon as possible." 

An officer of the Company's army on the Bombay 
establishment, James Outram had done good service 
to his country, good service to the people of India, 
on many different fields of adventure ; and had risen, 
not without much sore travail and sharp contention, 
to a place in the estimation of his Government and 
the affections of his comrades, from which he could 
afford to look down upon the conflicts of the Past 
with measureless calmness and contentment. Versed 
alike in the stern severities of war and the civilising 
humanities of peace, he was ready at a moment's 
notice to lead an army into the field or to superintend 
the government of a province. But it was in rough 
soldier's work, or in that still rougher work of mingled 
^vsiT and diplomacy which falls to the share of the Po- 
litical officer in India, that Outram's great and good 
qualities were most conspicuously displayed. For in 
him, with courage of the highest order, with mascu- 
line energy and resolution, were combined the gentle- 
ness of a woman and the simplicity of a child. No 
man knew better how to temper power with mercy 
and forbearance, and to combat intrigue and perfidy 
with pure sincerity and stainless truth. This truth- 



1834. 



140 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

fulness was, indeed, perhaps the most prominent, as it 
was the most perilous, feature of his character. Whatso- 
ever lie might do, w^hatsoever he might say, the whole 
was there before you in its full proportions. He wore 
his heart upon his sleeve, and was incapable of con- 
cealment or disguise. A pure sense of honour, a 
strong sense of justice, the vehement assertions of 
which no self-interested discretion could hold in re- 
straint, brought him sometimes into collision with 
others, and immersed him in a sea of controversy. 
But although, perhaps, in his reverential love of 
truth, he was over-eager to fight down what he might 
have been well content to live down, and in after life 
he may have felt that these wordy battles were very 
little worth fighting, he had still no cause to regret 
them, for he came unhurt from the conflict. It was 
after one of these great conflicts, the growth of serious 
oflicial strife, which had sent him from an honourable 
post into still more honourable retirement, that, re- 
turning to India with strong credentials from his 
masters in Leadenhall-street, Lord Dalhousie selected 
him to succeed Sleeman as Resident at Lucknow. 

The choice was a wise one. There was work to be 
done which required a hand at once gentle and strong. 
The fame of Outram was not the fame of a spoliator, 
but of a just man friendly to the native Princes and 
chiefs of India, who had lifted up his voice against 
wrongs done to them in his time, and who would 
rather have closed his public career than have been 
the agent of an unrighteous policy. But a measure 
which Low, and Sleeman, and Henry Lawrence had 
approved, nay, which in the interests of humanity 
they had strenuously recommended, was little likely 
to be an unrighteous one, and Outram, whilst re- 
joicing that his past career had thus been stamped by 



1854. 



OUTRAMS REPORT. Ill 

his Government with the highest practical approval, ^524 
accepted the offer in the full assurance that he could 
fulfil its duties without a stain upon his honour or a 
burden upon his conscience.* 

Making all haste to join his appointment, Outram 
quitted Aden, where the summons reached him, and 
took ship for Calcutta, where he arrived in the first 
month of the cold season. His instructions were soon November, 
prepared for him ; they were brief, but they suggested 
the settled resolution of Government to wait no longer 
for impossible improvements from within, but at once 
to shape their measures for the assertion, in accord- 
ance with Treaty, of the authority of the Para- 
mount State. But it was not a thing to be done in a 
hurry. The measure itself was to be deliberately 
carried out after certain preliminary formalities of 
inquiry and reference. It was Outram's part to 
inquire. A report upon the existing state of Oude 
was called for from the new Resident, and before the 
end of March it was forwarded to Calcutta. It was ISi 
an elaborate history of the misgovernment of Oude 
from the commencement of the century, a dark cata- 
logue of crime and suifering " caused by the culpable 
apathy of the Sovereign and the Durbar." "I have 
shown," said the new Resident, in conclusion, " that 
the afi*airs of Oude still continue in the same state, if 
not worse, in which Colonel Sleeman from time to time 
described them to be, and that the improvement which 
Lord Hardinge peremptorily demanded, seven years 
ago, at the hands of the King, in pursuance of the 
Treaty of 1801, has not, in any degree, been efibcted. 
And I have no hesitation in declaring my opinion, 

* I speak, of course, of the mere inj^ oui; the measure had not then 
fact of the assumption of the ad- been decided, 
ministration. The manner of carry- 



142 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1&55. therefore, that the duty imposed on the British Go- 
vernment by that treaty, cannot any longer admit of 
our ' honestly indulging the reluctance which the Go- 
vernment of India has felt heretofore to have recourse 
to those extreme measures which alone can be of any 
real efficiency in remedying the evils from which the 
state of Oude has suffered so long.' " 

To this report, and to much earlier information of 
the same kind with which the archives of Government 
were laden, the Governor-General gave earnest and 
sustained attention amidst the refreshing quiet of the 
Blue Mountains of Madras. The weighty document 
had picked up, on its road through Calcutta, another 

ircli 28, still more weighty, in the shape of a minute written 
by General Low. Few as were the words, they ex- 
hausted all the arguments in favour of intervention, 
and clothed them vnth the authority of a great name. 
No other name could have invested them with this 
authority, for no other man had seen so much of the 
evils of native rule in Oude, and no man was on 
principle more averse to the extinction of the native 
dynasties of India. All men must have felt the case 
to be very bad when John Low, who had spoken the 
brave words in defence of the Princes and chiefs of 
India which I have cited in the last chapter, was 
driven to the forcible expression of his conviction 
that it was the paramount duty of the British Go- 
vernment to interfere at once for the protection of 
the people of Oude.* 

* Low said lliat lie was in favour inatically disregarding^ our advice, 

of interference, " because the public instead of following it, or even en- 

and shameful oppressions committed deavouring to follow it ; because we 

on the people bv Government officers are bound by Treaty (quite 'different 

in Oude have of late years been con- in that respect from our position re- 

stant and extreme ; because the King latively to most of the great Native 

of Oude has continually, during many States) to prevent serious interior 

years, broken the Treaty by syste- misrule in Oude; because it has 



LORD DALHOUSIE's MINUTE. 143 

It was not possible to add mucli in tlie way of fact 1855. 
to what Outram had compiled, or much in the way of 
argument to what Low had written. But Dalhousie, 
to whom the fine bracino; air of the NeiMierries had 
imparted a new-born capacity for sustained labour, 
sat himself down to review the whole question in a 
gigantic minute. He signed it on the 18th June ; and, 
indeed, it was his Waterloo — the crowning victory of 
annexation. It is not necessary to repeat the facts, 
for I have stated them, or the arguments, for I have 
suggested them. No reader can have followed me 
thus far, without a strong assurance on his mind that 
it would have been a grievous wrong done to hu- 
manity to have any longer abstained from inter- 
ference. But what was the interference to be ? Here 
was a question for the Governor- General to solve in 
the invigorating atmosphere of Ootacamund — a ques- 
tion, the solution of which was to yield the cro^vning 
measure of his long vice-regal career. 

There may have been many Avays of working out 
the practical details of this measure ; but there was 
only one uncertain point which was of much substan- 
tial importance. All men agreed that the Treaty of 
1801 might rightfully be declared to have ceased by 
reason of repeated violations, and that with the con- 
sent of the King, if attainable, or mthout it, if unat- 
tainable, the Government of the country might be 
transferred to the hands of European administrators. 
That the King must be reduced to a mere cypher was 

been fully proved that we have not to these pungent sentences an ex- 
prevented it, and tliat we cannot pression of opinion that the un- 
prevent it by the present mode of iultilled threats of Lord Hardiiig3 
conducting our relations with that had increased the evil, inasmuch as 
State ; and because no man of com- that they had produced .an impres- 
o-jon sense can entertain the smallest sion in Oude that the Indian Go- 
expectation that the present King of vernment were restrained from inter- 
Oude can ever become an efficient ference by the orders of higher 
ruler of his country." And he added authority at liome. 



144 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

iSitS, certain ; it was certain that all possible respect ought 
to be shown to him in his fallen fortunes, and that he 
and all his family ought to be splendidly endowed ; 
no question could well be raised upon these points. 
The question was, what was to be done with the 
surplus revenue after paying all the expenses of ad- 
ministration ? Just and vrise men, as has been shown, 
had protested against the absorption of a single rupee 
into the British Treasury. They said that it would 
be as politic as it would be righteous, to demonstrate 
to all the States and Nations of India, that we had 
not deposed the King of Oude for our own benefit — 
that we had done a righteous act on broad principles 
of humanity, by which we had gained nothing. But 
Lord Dalhousie, though he proposed not to annex 
the country, determined to take the revenues. 

It is not very easy to arrive at a just conception of 
his views : " The reform of the administration," he 
said, ^' may be wrought, and the prosperity of the 
people may be secured, without resorting to so extreme 
a measure as the annexation of the territory and the 
abolition of the throne. I, for my part, therefore, do 
not recommend that the province of Oude should be 
declared to be British territory." But he proposed 
tliat the King of Oude, whilst retaining the sove- 
reignty of his dominions, should "vest all power, 
jurisdiction, rights and claims thereto belonging, in 
the hands of the East India Company," and that the 
surplus revenues should be at the disposal of the 
Company. What this territorial sovereignty was to 
l^e, without territorial rights or territorial revenues, 
il is not easy to see. When the Newab of the Carnatic 
%Ad the Rajah of Tanjore were deprived of their 
right** and revenues, they were held to be not terri- 
torial, but titular sovereigns. The Nizarriy on the 



dalhousie's views. 145 

other hand, might properly be described as " terri- 1835 
torial sovereign" of the Assigned Districts, although 
the administration had been taken from him, because 
an account of the revenue was to be rendered to him, 
and the surplus was to be paid into his hands. But 
the King of Oude, in Dalhousie's scheme, was to have 
had no more to do with his territories, than the 
titular sovereigns of the Carnatic and Tanjore ; and 
yet he was to be told that he was " to retain the so- 
vereignty of all the territories" of which he was then 
in possession. 

Strictly interpreted to the letter, the scheme did not 
suggest the annexation of Oude. The province was 
not to be incorporated Avith the British dominions. 
The revenues were to be kept distinct from those of the 
empire ; there was to be a separate balance-sheet ; and 
thus far the province was to have a sort of integrity of 
its own. This is sufficiently intelligible in itself; and, 
if the balance being struck, the available .surplus had 
been payable to the King of Oude, the rest of the 
scheme would have been intelligible also, for there 
would have been a quasi-sovereignty of the territories 
thus administered still remaining with the King. But 
the balance being payable into the British Treasury, 
it appears that Oude, in this state of financial isola- 
tion, would still have substantially been British ter- 
ritory, as much as if it had become a component part 
of the empire. Again, under the proposed system, 
Oude would have been beyond the circle of our 
ordinary legislation, in which respect it would not 
have differed much from other ^'' Non- Regulation Pro- 
vinces ;" and if it had, even this Legislative segregation 
superadded to the Financial isolation of which I have 
spoken, would not have made it any the less British 
territory. The Channel Islands have a separate 



146 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1865, Budget and distinct laws of their own, but still they 
are component parts of the British Empire, althougu 
they do not pay their surplus into the British 
Treasury. But in everything that really constitutes 
Kingship, the BailiiF of Jersey is as much the terri- 
torial sovereign of that island as Wajid Ali would 
have been territorial sovereign of Oude under Lord 
Dalhousie's programme of non-annexation. 

But this transparent disguise was not to be worn ; 
this distinction without a difference was not to be 
asserted, anyAvhere out of Lord Dalhousie's great 
Minute. The thino; that was to be done soon came 
to take its proper place in the Councils of the Indian 
Empire as the Annexation of Oude ; and it was as 
the annexation of Oude that the measure was con- 
sidered by the Government at home. The Court of 
Directors consented to the annexation of Oude. The 
Board of Control consented to the annexation of 
Oude. The British Cabinet consented to the annexa- 
tion of Oude. The word was not then, as it since 
has been, freely used in official documents, but it was 
in all men's minds, and many spoke it out bluntly 
instead of talking delicately about "assuming the 
Government of the Country." And, whether right or 
wa^ong, the responsibility of the measure rested as 
much with the Queen's Ministers as with the Merchant 
Company. That the Company had for long years 
shoAvn great forbearance is certain. They had hoped 
against hope, and acted against all experience. So 
eager, indeed, had they been to give the native 
Princes of India a fair trial, that they had disallowed 
the proposed treaty of 1837, and had pronounced 
an authoritative opinion in favour of the main- 
tenance of the then existing Native States of India. 
But twenty more years of misrule and anaichy had 



ORDERS FROM HOME. 147 

raised in their minds a feeling of wondering self- iStC/. 
reproach at the thought of their own patience ; and 
when they responded to the reference from Calcutta, 
they said that the doubt raised by a survey of the 
facts before them, was not whether it was then in- 
cumbent upon them to free themselves from the re- 
sponsibility of any longer upholding such a Govern- 
ment, but whether they could excuse themselves for 
not having, many years before, performed so impera- 
tive a duty. 

The despatch of the Court of Directors was signed November 19 
in the middle of November. At midnight on the 
2nd of January, the Governor-General mastered its 
contents. Had he thought of himself more than of 
his country he would not have been there at that 
time. The energies of his mind were undimmed ; but 
climate, and much toil, and a heavy sorrow weighing 
on his heart, had shattered a frame never constitu- 
tionally robust, and all men said that he was " break- 
ing." Without any failure of duty, without any 
imputation on his zeal, he might have left to his 
successor the ungrateful task of turning into stern 
realities the oft-repeated menaces of the British 
rulers who had gone before him. But he was not 
one to shrink from the performance of such a task 
because it was a painful and unpopular one. He 
believed that by no one could the duty of bringing 
the Oude Government to solemn account be so fitly 
discharged as by one who had watched for seven 
years the accumulation of its ofi*ences, and seen the 
measure of its guilt filled to the brim. He had inti- 
mated, therefore, to the Court of Directors his wil- 
lingness to remain at his post to discharge this duty, 
and in the despatch, which he read in the quiet of 
that January night, he saw on official record the 

l2 



148 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1856. alacrity with which his offer was accepted, and he 
ofirded himself for the closins: act of his long^ and 
eventful administration.* 

Next morning he summoned a Council. It was 
little more than a form. Dalhousie had waited for 
the authoritative sanction of the Home Government ; 
but he knew that sanction was coming, and he was 
prepared for its arrival. The greater part of the 
Avork had, indeed, been already done. The instruc- 
tions to be sent to the Resident; the treaty to be 
proposed to the King ; the proclamation to be issued 
to the people had all been drafted. The whole 
scheme of internal government had been matured, 
and the agency to be employed had been carefully 
considered. The muster-roll of the new administra- 
tion was ready, and the machinery was complete. 
The system was very closely to resemble that which 
had been tried with such good success in the Punjab, 
and its agents were, as in that province, to be a 
mixed body of civil and military officers, under a 
Chief Commissioner. All the weighty documents, by 
which the revolution was to be effected, were in the 
Portfolio of the Foreign Secretary ; and now, at this 
meeting of the Council, they were formally let loose 
to do their work. 

The task Avhich Outram was commissioned to per- 
form was a difficult, a delicate, and a painful one. 
He was to endeavour to persuade the King of Oude 
formally to abdicate his sovereign functions, and to 
make over, by a solemn treaty, the government of 
his territories to the East India Company. In the 
event of his refusal, a proclamation was to be issued, 
declaring the whole of Oude to be British territory. 

* The Court of Directors to the Government of India, November 19, 
1855. Paragraph 19. 



ANNEXATION. 149 

By a man of Outram's humane and generous nature 1856. 
no counsel from his Government was needed to 
induce him to do the work entrusted to him in the 
manner least likely to wound the feelings of the King. 
But it was right that such counsel should be given. 
It was given ; but the decree of the Paramount State, 
tempered as it might be by outward courtesy of man- 
ner, was still to be carried out, with stern and reso- 
lute action. No protests, no remonstrances, no pro- 
mises, no prayers were to be suffered to arrest the 
retributive measure for a day. It need not be added 
that no resistance could avert it. A body of British 
troops, sufficient to trample down all possible opposi- 
tion, had been moved up into a position to overawe 
Lucknow, and for the doomed Government of Oude 
to attempt to save itself by a display of force would 
have been only to court a most useless butchery. 

Outram received his instructions at the end of 
January. On the last day of the month he placed 
himself in communication with the Oude Minister, 
clearly stated the orders of the British Government, 
and said that they were final and decisive. Four 
days were spent in preliminary formalities and nego- 
tiations. In true Oriental fashion, the Court endea- 
voured to gain time, and, appealing to Outram, 
through the aged Queen Mother — a woman with far 
more of masculine energy and resolution than her 
son — importuned him to persuade his Government to 
give the King another trial, to wait for the arrival 
of the new Governor- General, to dictate to AVajid All 
any reforms to be carried out in his name. All this had 
been expected; all this provided for. Outram had 
but one answer ; the day of trial, the day of forbear- 
ance was past. All that he could now do was to 
deliver his message to the King. 



150 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1856. On tlie 4th of February, Wajid Ali announced 

his willmgness to receive the British Resident; and 
Outram, accompanied by his lieutenants, Hayes and 
Weston, proceeded to the palace. Strange and sig- 
nificant symptoms greeted them as they went. The 
guns at the palace-gates were dismounted. The pa- 
lace-guards were unarmed. The guard of honour, 
who should have presented arms to the Resident, 
saluted him only with their hands. Attended by his 
brother and a few of his confidential Ministers, the 
King received the English gentlemen at the usual 
spot ; and after the wonted ceremonies, the business 
commenced. Outram presented to the King a letter 
from the Governor- General, which contained, in terms 
of courteous explanation, the sentence that had been 
passed upon him, and urged him not to resist it. A 
draft of the proposed treaty was then placed in his 
hands. He received it with a passionate burst of 
grief, declared that treaties were only between equals; 
that there was no need for him to sign it, as the 
British would do with him and his possessions as 
they pleased ; they had taken his honour and his 
country, and he would not ask them for the means 
of maintaining his life. All that he sought was per- 
mission to proceed to England, and cast himself and 
his sorrows at the foot of the Throne. Nothing could 
move him from his resolution not to sign the treaty. 
He uncovered his head ; placed his turban in the 
hands of the Resident, and sorrowfully declared that 
title, rank, honour, everything were gone ; and that 
now the British Government, which had made his 
grandfather a King, might reduce him to nothing, 
and consign him to obscurity. 

In this exaggerated display of helplessness there 
was something too characteristically Oriental for any 



ANNEXATION. 151 

part of it to be assigned to European prompting. But 1S5G. 
if the scene had been got up expressly for an English 
audience, it could not have been more cunningly con- 
trived to increase the appearance of harshness and 
cruelty with which the friends of the King were pre- 
pared to invest the act of dethronement. No man 
was more likely than Outram to have been doubly 
pained, in the midst of all his painful duties, by the 
unmanly prostration of the King. To deal harshly 
with one who declared himiself so feeble and defence- 
less, was like striking a woman or a cripple. But 
five millions of people were not to be given up, from 
generation to generation, to suiFering and sorrow, 
because an effeminate Prince, when told he was no 
longer to have the power of inflicting measureless 
wrongs on his country, burst into tears, said that he 
was a miserable wretch, and took off his turban in- 
stead of taking out his sword. 

There was nothing now left for Outram but to 
issue a proclamation, prepared for him in Calcutta, 
declaring the province of Oude to be thenceforth, for 
ever, a component part of the British Indian Empire. 
It went forth to the people of Oude ; and the people 
of Oude, without a murmur, accepted their new 
masters. There were no popular risings. Not a 
blow was struck in defence of the native dynasty of 
Oude. The whole population went over quietly to 
their new rulers, and the country, for a time, was 
outwardly more tranquil than before. 

This was the last act of Lord Dalhousie's Ministry. 
When he placed the Portfolio of Government in the 
hands of Lord Canning, the British officers to whom 
had been entrusted the work of reforming the ad- 
ministration of Oude, were discharging their pre- 
scribed duties with an energy which seemed to 



152 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1856. promise the happiest results. The King was still 
obstinate and sullen. He persisted in refusing to 
sign the treaty or to accept the proposed stipend of 
1120,000 twelve lakhs; and though he had thought better of 
the idea of casting himself at the foot of the British 
Throne, he had made arrangements to send his nearest 
kindred — his mother, his brother, and his son — to 
England to perform a vicarious act of obeisance, 
and to clamour for his rio-hts. 

With what result the administration, as copied 
closely from the Punjabee system, was wrought out 
in detail, will be shown at a subsequent stage of this 
narrative. It was thought, as the work proceeded 
in quietude and in seeming prosperity, that it was a 
great success ; and it gladdened the heart of the 
Government in Leaden hall-street, to Chink of the 
accomplishment of this peaceful revolution. But 
that the measure itself made a very bad impression 
on the minds of the people of India, is not to be 
doubted ; not because of the deposition of a King 
who had abused his powers ; not because of the in- 
troduction of a new system of administration for the 
benefit of the people ; but because the humanity of 
the act was soiled by the profit which we derived 
from it ; and to the comprehension of the multitude 
it appeared that the good of the people, which we 
had vaunted whilst serving ourselves, was nothing 
more than a pretext and a sham ; and that we had 
simply extinguished one of the few remaining Ma- 
homedan States of India that we might add so 
many thousands of square miles to our British terri- 
tories, and so many millions of rupees to the revenues 
of the British Empire in the East. And who, it was 
asked, could be safe, if we thus treated one who had 
ever been the most faithful of our allies? 



EXTlN"CTION OF THE ARISTOCRACY. i53 



CHAPTER IV. 

DESTRUCTION OF THE NATIVE ARISTOCRACY — RETROSPECT OF REVENUS 
ADMINISTRATION — THE SETTLEMENT OF THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES — 
THE OUSTING OF THE TALOOKHDARS — RESUMPTION OPERATIONS— THE 
INAM COMMISSION — DECAY OF PRIESTLY POWER — SOCIAL REFORMS- 
MORAL AND MATERIAL PROGRESS. 

Whilst great principalities were tlius being ab- 1806 lS5?s, 
sorbed and ancient sovereignties extinguished, a war 
of extermination no less fatal in its effects, but more 
noiseless in its operations, was being waged against 
the nobility and gentry of the country. The original 
proclamation of this war did not emanate from Lord 
Dalhousie. The measures by which the native aris- 
tocracy were destroyed were not primarily his mea- 
sures. It was the policy of the times to recognise 
nothing between the Prince and the Peasant ; a policy 
which owed its birth not tt one but to many ; a policy, 
the greatest practical exposition of which was the Set- 
tlement of the North- West Provinces. It was adopted 
in pure good faith and with the most benevolent in- 
tentions. It had the sanction of many wise and good 
men. It was not the policy by which such statesmen 
as John Malcolm, George Clerk, and Henry Law- 
rence, sought to govern the people ; but it was sanc- 
tified by the genius of John Lawrence, and of the 
Gamaliel at whose feet he had sat, the virtuous, pure- 
minded James Thomason. 



] 54 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1S06-56. To bring the direct authority of the British Go- 
vernment to bear upon the great masses of the people, 
without the intervention of any powerful section of 
their own countrymen — to ignore, indeed, the exist- 
ence of all governing classes but the European officers, 
who carried out the behests of that Government — 
seemed to be a wise and humane system of protection. 
It was intended to shelter the many from the injurious 
action of the interests and the passions of the fe^7. 
The utter worthlessness of the upper classes wafi 
assumed to be a fact ; and it was honestly believed 
that the obliteration of the aristocracy of the land 
was the greatest benefit that could be conferred on 
the people. And thus it happened that whilst the 
native sovereigns of India w^ere one by one being 
extinguished, the native aristocracy had become well- 
nigh extinct. 

Doubtless, we started upon a theory sound in the 
abstract, intent only on promoting the greatest hap- 
piness of the greatest number ; but if we had allowed 
ourselves to understand the genius and the institu- 
tions of the people, we should have respected the 
rights, natural and acquired, of all classes of the com- 
munity, instead of working out any abstract theory 
of our own. It was in the very nature of things 
necessary, inevitable, that the extension of British 
rule, followed always by a reconstruction of the ad- 
ministration, and a substitution of civil and military 
establishments fashioned upon our own models and 
composed of our own people, should have deprived 
many of the chief people of their official rank and 
official emoluments, and cast them adrift upon the 
world, either to seek new fields of adventure in the 
unabsorbed Native States, or to fester into a disaffected 
and dangerous class sullenly biding their time. This 



THE TERmTORIAL NOBILITY. 155 

is an old story ; an old complaint. Half a century 1806-55. 
before the time of which I am now writing, it had 
been alleged to be one of the main causes of that 
national outburst in Southern India known as the 
mutiny of Vellore. But this very necessity for the 
extinction of the old race of high native functionaries,' 
often hereditary office-bearers, ought to have ren- 
dered us all the more desirous to perpetuate the 
nobility whose greatness was derived from the Land. 
It is true that the titles of the landed gentry whom 
we found in possession were, in some cases, neither of 
very ancient date nor of very unquestionable origin. 
But, whatsoever the nature of their tenures, we found 
them in the possession of certain rights or privileges 
allowed to them by the Governments which we had 
supplanted, and our first care should have been to 
confirm and secure their enjoyment of them. We 
might have done this without sacrificing the rights 
of others. Indeed, we might have done it to the full 
contentment of the inferior agricultural classes. But 
many able English statesmen, especially in Upper 
India, had no toleration for any one who might 
properly be described as a Native Gentleman. They 
had large sympathies and a comprehensive humanity, 
but still they could not embrace any other idea of the 
Native Gentry of India than that of an institution 
to be righteously obliterated for the benefit of the 
great mass of the people. 

There were two processes by which this depression 
of the privileged classes was efi*ected. The one was 
known by the name of a Settlement, the other was 
called Resumption. It would be out of place here, if 
I had the ability, to enter minutely into the difficult 
question of landed tenures in India. It is an old story 
now, that when that clever coxcomb, Victor Jacque- 



156 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

180C-56. mont, asked Holt Mackenzie to explain to him in a 
five minutes' conversation the various systems of Land 
Revenue obtaining in different parts of the country, 
the experienced civilian replied that he had been for 
twenty years endeavouring to understand the sub- 
ject and had not mastered it yet. Such a rebuke ought 
to be remembered. The little that I have to say on 
the subject shall be said with the least possible use of 
technical terms, and with the one object of making 
the general reader acquainted with the process by 
which the substance of the great landholders in Upper 
India was diminished by the action of the British 
Government. 

In the Literature of India the word " Settlement" 
is one of such frequent occurrence, and to the 
Indian resident it conveys such a distinct idea, that 
there is some danger of forgetting that the general 
reader may not be equally conversant with the exact 
meaning of the term. It may therefore, perhaps, be 
advantageously explained that as the Indian Revenue 
is mainly derived from the land, it is of the first im- 
portance, on the acquisition of new territory, clearly 
to ascertain the persons from whom the Government 
dues are to be exacted, and the amount that is payable 
by each. We may call it Rent or we may caU it 
Revenue, it little matters. The adjustment of the 
mutual relations between the Government and the 
agriculturists was kno-\vn as the Settlement of the 
Revenue. It was an affair of as much vital interest 
and concernment to the one as to the other, for to 
be charged with the payment of the Revenue was to 
be acknowledged as the proprietor of the land. 

When we first took possession of the countr}^ ceded 
by the Newab-Wuzeer of Oude, or conquered from 
the Mahrattas, all sorts of proprietors presented them- 



TALOOKHDAREE RIGHTS. 157 

selves, and our officers, having no special theories 1806-56. 
and no overriding prejudices, were willing to con- 
sider the claims of all, whether small or great holders, 
whom they found in actual possession ; and brief set- 
tlements or engagements were made with them, pend- 
insr a more thorouo:h investis^ation of their rights. 
There was, doubtless, at first a good deal of ignorance 
on our part, and a good deal of wrong-doing and 
usurpation on the part of those with whom we were 
called upon to deal. But the landed gentry of these 
Ceded and Conquered Provinces, though they suf- 
fered by the extension of the British Raj, were not 
deliberately destroyed by a theory. It was the in- 
evitable tendency of our Regulations, especially of 
that great Mystery of Iniquity, the Sale Law, and of 
the immigration of astute native functionaries from 
the Lower Provinces, which inaugurated our rule, to 
subvert the supremacy of the old landholders. Under 
the system, which we introduced, men who had been 
proprietors of vast tracts of country as far as the eye 
could reach, shrivelled into tenants of mud-huts and 
possessors only of a few cooking-pots. The process, 
though certain in its results, was gradual in its opera- 
tion ; and the ruin which it entailed was incidental, 
not systematic. It was ignorantly suffered, not deli- 
berately decreed. But, at a later period, when a new 
political creed had grown up among our British func- 
tionaries in India, and upon officers of this new school 
devolved the duty of fixing the relations of the agri- 
cultural classes with the British Government, the 
great besom of the Settlement swept out the remnant 
of the landed gentry from their baronial possessions, 
and a race of peasant-proprietors were recognised as 
the legitimate inheritors of the soil. 

How this happened may be briefly stated. A Per- 



158 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1806-5G. manent Settlement on the Beno;al model had been 
talked of, ordered and counter-ordered ; but for nearly 
a tlin^d part of a century, under a series of brief 
engagements with holders of diiferent kinds, uncer- 
tainty and confusion prevailed, injurious both to the 
Government and to the People. But in the time 
1833. of Lord William Bentinck an order went forth for 
the revision of this system or no-system, based upon 
a detailed survey and a clearly recorded definition of 
rights, and what is known in History as the Settle- 
ment of the North-West Provinces, was then formally 
commenced. 

That it was benevolently designed and consci- 
entiously executed, is not to be doubted. But it was 
marred by a Theory. In the pursuit of right, the 
framers of the settlement fell into wrong. Striving 
after justice, they perpetrated injustice. Nothing 
1845. could be sounder than the declared principle that " it 
was the duty of the Government to ascertain and pro- 
tect all existing rights, those of the poor and humble 
villager as well as those of the rich and influential 
Talookhdar."* It was said that this principle had 
been not only asserted, but acted upon. But the fact 
is, that the practice halted a long way behind the 
principle. Such were the feelings with which many of 
our officers regarded the great landholders, that equal 
justice between the conflicting claims and interests 
of the two classes was too often ignored. There 
were scales over the eyes of commonly clear-sighted 
men when they came to look at this question in the 
face, and therefore the ^'poor and humble villager" 

* See letter of Mr. Jolm Thorn- undeniable truth, that "in so far as 

ton. Secretary to Government, North- this is done with care and dih'gence 

West Provinces, to Mr. H. M. El- will the measure be successful in 

liot, Secretary to Board of Revenue, placing property on a healthy and 

April 30, 1845. It is added, with sound footing.'* 



SETTLEMENT OF NORTH ^^YESTERN PROVINCES. 159 

Iiad a full measure of justice, pressed down and run- 1S3G40. 
ning over, whilst the "rich and influential Talookhdar" 
had little or none. 

There are few who have not become familiar with 
this word TaloohJidar ; who do not know that an 
influential class of men so styled in virtue of certain 
rights or interests in the land, were dispossessed of 
those rights or interests and reduced to absolute ruin. 
It must be understood, however, that the proprietary- 
rights of which I speak were very difl<erent from the 
rights of landed property in England. The Talookh- 
dar was little more than an hereditary revenue-con- 
tractor. His right was the right to all the just rents 
paid by the actual occupants, after satisfaction of 
the Government claims. His property was the rent 
minus the revenue of a particular estate. This Ta- 
lookhdaree right, or right of collection, was distinct 
from the Zemindaree right, or proprietary right in 
the soil. The Talookhdar, who paid to Government 
the revenue of a large cluster of villages, had, perhaps, 
a proprietary right in some of these small estates; 
perhaps, in none. The proprietary right, in most 
instances, lay with the village communities. And it 
was the main eflbrt of the English oflicers, engaged 
in the Settlement of the North- West Provinces, to 
bring these village occupants into direct relations 
with the Government, and to receive from them the 
amount of the assessment fixed upon their several 
estates. 

Now it was a just and fitting thing that the rights 
of these village proprietors should be clearly defined. 
But it was not always just that the Government should 
enter into direct engagements with them and drive 
out the intervening Talookhdar. The actual occu- 
pants might, in a former generation, have been a con- 



160 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

:83G-4:6. sequence only of a pre-existing Talookhdaree right, 
as in cases where cultivators had been located on 
waste lands by a contractor or grantee of the State ; 
or the Talookhdar might have acquired his position 
by purchase, by favour, perhaps by fraud, after the 
location of the actual occupants ; still it was a pro- 
prietary interest, perhaps centuries old. Let us ex- 
plain their position as we may, these Talookhdars con- 
stituted the landed aristocracy of the country ; they 
had recognised manorial rights; they had, in many 
instances, all the dignity and power of great feudal 
barons, and, doubtless, often turned that power to 
bad account. But whether for good or for evil, in past 
years, we found them existing as a recognised insti- 
tution; and it was at the same time a cruel wrong 
and a grievous error to sweep it away as though it 
were an incumbrance and an usurpation. 

The theory of the Settlement officers was that the 
village Zemindars had an inalienable right in the soil, 
and that the Talookhdar was little better than an 
upstart and an impostor. All the defects in his 
tenure were rigidly scanned; all the vices of his 
character were violently exaggerated. He was writ- 
ten doA\Ti as a fraudulent upstart and an unscrupu- 
lous oppressor. To oust a Talookhdar was held 
by some young Settlement officers to be as great an 
achievement as to shoot a tiger ; and it was done, too, 
with just as clear a conviction of the benefit con- 
ferred upon the district in which the animal prowled 
and marauded. It was done honestly, conscien- 
tiously, laboriously, as a deed entitling the doer 
to the gratitude of mankind. There was something 
thorough in it that wrung an unwilling admiration 
even from those who least approved. It was a 
grand levelling system, reducing everything to first 



TREATMENT OF THE TALOOKHDARS. IGl 

principles and a delving Adam. Who was a gentle- 1833-4C 
man and a Talookhdar, they asked, when these time- 
honoured Village Communities were first established 
on the soil ? So the Settlement Officer, in pursuit of 
the great scheme of restitution, was fain to sweep out 
the Landed Gentry and to applaud the good thing he 
had done.* 

And if one, by happy chance, was brought back by 
a saving hand, it was a mercy and a miracle; and 
the exception which proved the rule. The chances 
against him were many and great, for he had divers 
ordeals to pass through, and he seldom survived 
them all. It was the wont of many Settlement officers 
to assist the solution of knotty questions of pro- 
prietary right by a reference to personal character 
and conduct, so that when the claims of a great 
Talookhdar could not be altogether ignored, it was 
declared that he was a rogue or a fool — perhaps, an 
atrocious compound of both — and that he had for- 
feited, by oppressions and cruelties, or by neglects 
scarcely less cruel, all claim to the compassion of the 
State. They gave the man a bad name, and straight- 
way they Avent out to ruin him. A single illustra- 
tion will suffice. One of the great landholders thus 
consigned to perdition was the Rajah of Mynpooree. 
Of an old and honoured family, distinguished for 
loyalty and good service to the British Government, 
be was the Talookhdar of a large estate comprising 
nearly two hundred villages, and was amongst the 
most influential of the landed aristocracy of that part 
of the country. The Settlement officer was one of 

* In sober official lani^uai^e, de- lions, and to substitute, -whenever 
f/r-il^d by Lieutenant-Governor Ro- tliere was an opportunity, a villagia 
berison as "the prevailing, and per- community for an individu^il land- 
haps exceseive, readiness to reduce holder." 



extensive pioperties into minute por 



M 



162 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALIIQUSIE. 

1836-40. the ablest and best of his class. Fulfilling the great 
Mr. G. Ed- promise of his youth, he afterwards attained to the 
luoiistone. Jiigliest post in those very Provinces, an eminence 
from which he might serenely contemplate the fact 
that the theory of the Dead-Level is against nature, 
and cannot be enforced without a convulsion. But, 
in the early days of which I am speaking, a great 
Talookhdar was to him what it was to others of the 
same school ; and he represented that the Rajah, 
himself incompetent almost to the point of imbecility, 
Avas surrounded by agents of the worst character, 
who in his name had been guilty of all kinds of 
cruelty and oppression. Unfit as he was said to be 
for the management of so large an estate, it would, 
according to the prevailing creed, have been a 
righteous act to exclude him from it ; but it was 
necessary, according to rule, to espy also a flaw in 
his tenure; so it was found that he had a just pro- 
prietary right in only about a fourth of the two 
hundred villages."* It was proposed, therefore, that 
his territorial greatness should to this extent be 
shorn down in the future Settlement, and that the 
bulk of the property should be settled with the vil- 
lage communities, whose rights, whatever they might 
originally have been, had lain for a century in 
abeyance. 

Above the Settlement officer, in the ascending' 
scale of our Administrative Agency, was the Com- 
missioner ; above the Commissioner, the Board of 
Revenue ; above the Board of Revenue, the Lieu 
tenant-Governor. In this cluster of graduated autho- 
rities the Old and New School alternated like the 
Black and White of a chess-board. The recommen- 

* The exact number was 189, of pensation, in llie shape of a per- 

which it was ruled that the Rajah centngo, war, to be given him for the 

could justly be recorded as pro- loss of the rest, 
piietor only of 51. A money-coin- 



TREATMENT OF THE TALOOKHDARS. 163 

dations of George Edmonstone were stoutly opposed 183G-46 
by Robert Hamilton. The sharp, incisive logic of 
the Commissioner cut throuofh the fallacious reason - 
ing of the Settlement officer. '' He was of opinion 
that the value of landed possessions and the import- 
ance attached to them could never be made up by a 
money allowance ; that the imbecility of the Rajah, 
if affording a justification for his being relieved from 
the management of his estate, could be none for de- 
priving his family of their inheritance ; and that it 
was inconsistent to denounce as oppressive in a native 
ruler the same measures of sale and dispossession 
which were adopted by our own Government towards 
Revenue defaulters."* But the Board, of which the 
living principle was Robert Bird, dissented from the 
views of the Commissioner, and upheld the levelling 
processes of the Settlement officer. Then Lieutenant- 
Governor Robertson appeared upon the scene, and 
the decision of the Board was flung back upon them 
as the unjust growth of a vicious, generalising sj^stem, 
which would break up every large estate in the 
country into minute fractions, and destroy the whole 
aristocracy of the country. He could not see that, 
on the score either of invalidity of tenure or of ad- 
ministrative incapacity, it would be just to pare down 
the Rajah's estate to one-fourth of its ancestral dimen- 
sions ; so he ruled that the settlement of the whole 
ought rightly to be made with the Talookhdar.f But 
the vicissitudes of the case were not even then at an 

* Despatch of Court of Directors, elusive ; that if the Zemindars ever 

Aiii^ust 13, 1851. possessed the riglits attributed to 

t "The Lieutenant-Governor re- tliem, they had not been in the active 

corded his opinion, that no proof of enjoyment of tliem for upwards of a 

the Rajah's mismanagement, such as century, while the Rajah's claims 

could justify his exclusion, had been had been admitted for more than 

adduced ; that the evidence in sup- four generations ; that, admitting 

port of tlie proprietary claims of the the inconvenience which miijht.some- 

Zemindurs was insufficient and incon- times result from the recognition of 

M 2 



Cletk. 



Mr. Tlioma- 



164 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

183G46. end. The opposition of the Board caused some delay 
in the issue of the formal instructions of Government 
for the recognition of the Talookhdar, and before the 
settlement had been made with the Rajah, Robertson 
had resigned his post to another. That other was a, 

Mr. George man of the same school, with no greater passion than 
his predecessor for the subversion of the landed 
gentry ; but sickness rendered his tenure of office too 
1844. brief, and, before the close of the year, he was suc- 
ceeded by one whose name is not to be mentioned 
mthout respect — the honoured son of an honoured 

3on. """"■" father — the much-praised, much-lamented Thomason. 
He was as earnest and as honest as the men who had 
gone before him ; but his strong and sincere convic- 
tions lay all in the other way. He was one of the 
chief teachers in the New School, and so strong was 
his faith in its doctrines that he regarded, Avith feel- 
ings akin to wondering compassion, as men whom 
God had given over to a strong delusion that they 
should believe a lie, all who still cherished the opi- 
nions which he had done so much to explode.* 

the superior mal^oosar, it would not much honesty of principle Le is pos- 

be reconcilable with good feeling or sessed of a constitution of mind 

justice to deal as the Board pro- which prevents him from readily 

posed to do, with one found in actual adopting the principles of others, or 

and long-acknowledged possession, acting upon their rules. A great 

He condemned the practice of de- part of his Indian career has been 

ciding cases of this nature on one passed in opposition to the prevail- 

invariable and generalising principle ; ing maxims of the day, and he finds 

stated that he could discover no suf- himself conscientiously adverse to 

ficient reason for excluding the Hajah what has been done." With respect 

of Mynpooree from the management to these prevailing maxims, Mr. F. 

of any of the villages composing the H. Robinson, of the Civil Service, 

Talook of Minchunnali; and finally in a pamphlet published in 1855, 

withheld his confirmation of the quotes the significant observation 

settlement concluded with the vil- of an old llessaldar of Gardener's 

lage Zemindars, directing the engage- Horse, who said to him : " No doubt 

ments to betaken from the Talooich- the wisdom of the new gentlemen 

dar." — Despatchof Court of Directors, had shown them the folly and the 

Aurfust\2t, 1851. ignorance of the gentlemen of the 

* See, for example, his reflections old time, ou whom it pleased God, 

on the contumacy of Mr. Boulderson, nevertheless, to bestovv the govern- 

ci" whom Mr. Thomason savs : "With ment of India." 



TREATMENT OF THE TALOOKIIDARS. 165 

Supreme in the North-AVest Provinces, he found the 1830-40. 
case of the Mynpooree Rajah still formally before the 
Government. No final orders had been issued, so he 
issued them. The besom of the Settlement swept the 
great Talookhdar out of three-fourths of the estate, 
and the village proprietors were left to engage with 
Government for all the rest in his stead. 

It is admitted now, even by men who were per- 
sonally concerned in this great work of the Settlement 
of Northern India, that it involved a grave political 
error. It was, undoubtedly, to convert into bitter 
enemies those whom sound policy would have made 
the friends and supporters of the State. Men of the 
Old School had seen plainly from the first that by these 
measures we were sowing broadcast the seeds of future 
trouble. Foremost among these was the veteran Di- 
rector Tucker, who had been engaged in the first set- 
tlement of the Ceded and Conquered Provinces, and 
who knew as well as any man what rights existed on 
our original assumption of the government of those - 
territories. "The way to conciliate the peasantry," 1832. 
he wrote, "or to improve their condition, is not, I 
think, by dissolving the connexion between them and 
the superior Talookhdars, or village Zemindars. The 
one we have, I fear, entirely displaced ; but we cannot 
destroy the memory of their past or the consciousness 
of their present state. They were once prosperous, 
and they and their descendants must feel that they are 
no longer so. They are silent, because the natives of 
India are accustomed to endure and to submit to the 
will of their rulers ; but if an enemy appear on our 
Western frontier, or if an insurrection unhappily take 
place, we shall find these Talookhdars, I apprehend, 
in the adverse ranks, and their ryots and retainers 
ranged under the same standard." And a quarter of 



Il36 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSiE. 

J8"o64G. a century later, one who had received the traditions 
of this school unbroken from Thomas Campbell 
Robertson, at whose feet he had sat, wrote that he 
had long been pointing out that, " although the old 
families were being displaced fast, we could not 
destroy the memory of the past, or dissolve the 
ancient connexion between them and their people ; and 
said distinctly that, in the event of any insurrection oc- 
curring, we should find this great and influential body, 
through whom we can alone hope to keep under and 
control the rural masses, ranged against us on the side 
of the enemy, with their hereditary followers and re- 
tainers rallying around them, in spite of our attempts 
to separate their interests." " My warnings," he 
added, "were unheeded, and I was treated as an 
alarmist, who, having hitherto served only in the 
political department of the State, and being totally 
inexperienced in Revenue matters, could give no 
sound opinion on the subject."* 
Treatment of Warnings of this kind were, indeed, habitually 
geiiiry. disregarded ; and the system, harsh in itself, was 

carried out, in some cases harshly and uncompro- 
misingly, almost indeed as though there were a plea- 
sure in doing it. It is true that men deprived of their 
vested interests in great estates were recommended 
for money-payments direct from the Treasury ; but 
this was no compensation for the loss of the land, 
Avith all the dignity derived from manorial rights 
and baronial privileges, and it was sometimes felt to 
be an insult. It was not even the fashion in 
those days to treat the Native Gentry with personal 
courtesy and conciliation. Some of the great masters 

*' Porsonal Adventures during the and late Mafjistrale and Collector of 
Indian Kebellion. By William Ed- Ludaon, in iloliilcund. 
wards, B.C.S., Judge of Benaics, 



RLNT-FREE TENUIlES. 167 

of the scliool, men of the highest probity and bene- ISSfi-if 
volence, are said to have failed in this with a great 
failure, as lamentable as it was surprising. " In the 
matter of discourtesy to the native gentry," wrote 
Colonel Sleeman to John Colvin, " I can only say 
that Robert Mertins Bird insulted them, whenever 
he had an opportunity of doing so ; and that Mr. 
Thomason was too apt to imitate him in this as 
in other things. Of course their example was fol- 
lowed by too many of their followers and admirers."* 

And whilst all this was going on, there was another Renh-fiee 
process in active operation by which the position of *^^"^^*' 
the privileged classes was still further reduced. 
There is not one of the many difficulties, which the 
acquisition of a new country entails upon us, more 
serious than that which arises from the multiplicity 
of privileges and prescriptions, territorial and official, 
which, undetermined by any fixed principle, have 
existed under the native Government which w^e have 
supplanted. Even at the outset of our administrative 
career it is difficult to deal with these irregular 
claims, but the difficulty is multiplied tenfold by 
delay. The action of our Government in all such 
cases should be prompt and unvarying. Justice or 
Injustice should be quick in its operation and equal 
in its effects. Accustomed to revolutions of empire 
and mutations of fortune, the native mind readily 
comprehends the idea of confiscation as the imme- 
diate result of conquest. Mercy and forbearance at 
such time are not expected, and are little understood. 
The descent of the strong hand of the conqueror upon 
all existing rights and privileges is looked for with a 

* See Correspondence annexed to whose authority is entitled to ]-e- 
published edition of Sleeman's Oude spect, tliat the statement is to bo 
Diary. I have been told by men received with caution. 



168 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

18.36-4G. feeling of submission to inevitable fate ; and at such 
a time no one wonders, scarcely any one complains, 
when the acts of a former Government are ignored, 
and its gifts are violently resumed. 

Under former Governments, and indeed, in the 
earlier days of our own, there had been large aliena- 
tions of revenue in favour of persons who had rendered 
good service to the State, or had otherwise acquired 
the favour of the rulers of the land. These rent-free 
tenures were of many different kinds. A volume 
might be filled with an account of them. Some were 
burdened with conditions; some were not. Some 
were personal life-grants ; some were hereditary and 
perpetual. Some were of old standing; some were 
of recent origin. Some had been fairly earned or 
justly acquired ; others were the vile growth of fraud 
and corruption. They varied no less in the circum- 
stances of their acquisition than in their intrinsic 
character and inherent conditions. But anyhow they 
were for some time a part of our system, and had 
come to be regarded as the rights of the occupants. 
Every year which saw men in undisturbed posses- 
sion seemed to strengthen those rights. An inquiry, 
at the outset of our career of administration, into the 
validity of all such tenures would have been an in- 
telligible proceeding. Doubtless, indeed, it was ex- 
pected. But years passed, and the danger seemed to 
have passed with them. Nay, more, the inactivity, 
seemingly the indifi*erence of the British Government, 
with respect to those whom we found in possession, 
emboldened others to fabricate similar rights, and to 
lay claim to immunities which they had never en- 
joyed under their native masters. 

In Bengal this manufacture of rent-free tenures 



RESUMPTION OFERATIOXS. 160 

was carried on to an extent that largely diminished 1830-10. 
the legitimate revenue of the country. A very con- 
siderable portion of these tenures was the growth of 
the transition-period immediately before and imme- 
diately after our assumption of the Dewanec, or 
Revenue - Administration, of Bengal, Behar, and 
Orissa. At the time of the great Permanent Set- 1793. 
tlement the rent-free holders were called upon to 
register their claims to exemption from the payment 
of the Government dues, and their grounds of exemp- 
tion : and as they still remained in possession, they 
believed that their rights and privileges had been 
confirmed to them. The Permanent Settlement, 
indeed, was held to be the Magna Charta of the 
privileged classes; and for more than forty years 
men rejoiced in their freeholds, undisturbed by any 
thoughts of invalidity of title or insecurity of 
tenure. 

But after this lapse of years, when Fraud itself Kesumpt 
might reasonably have pleaded a statute of limita- ^^^^^ '^"^ 
tions, the English revenue-officer awoke to a sense of 
the wrongs endured by his Government. So much 
revenue alienated; so many worthless sinecurists 
living in indolent contentment at the cost of the State, 
enjoying vast privileges and immunities, to the injury 
of the great mass of the People. Surely it was a 
scandal and a reproach ! Then well-read, clever 
secretaries, with a turn for historical illustration, dis- 
covered a parallel between this grievous state of 
things in Bengal and that which preceded the great 
revolution in France, when the privileges of the old 
nobility pressed out the very life of the nation, until 
the day of reckoning and retribution came, with a 
more dire tyranny of its own. Viewed in this light, 



ion 



170 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1S36.4G. it was held to be an imperative duty to Colbertise the 
Lakhirajdars of the Lower Provinces.* So the re- 
sumption-officer was let loose upon the land. Titles 
were called for; proofs of validity were to be esta- 
blished, to the satisfaction of the Government func- 
tionary. But in families, which seldom last a genera- 
tion without seeing their houses burnt down, and in 
a climate, which during some months of the year is 
made up of incessant rains, and during others of 
steamy exhalations — where the devouring damp, and 
the still more devouring insect, consume all kinds of 
perishable property, even in stout-walled houses, it 
would have been strange if genuine documentary 
evidence had been forthcomino; at the rio;ht time. It 
was an awful thing, after so many years of undis- 
turbed possession, to be called upon to establish 
proofs, when the only proof was actual incumbency. 
A reign of terror then commenced. And if, when 
thus threatened, the weak Bengalee had not some- 
times betaken himself in self-defence to the ready 
weapons of forgery, he must have changed his nature 
under the influence of his fears. That Avhat ensued 
may properly be described as wholesale confiscation is 
not to be doubted. Expert young revenue-officers 
settled scores of cases in a day ; and families, who 
had held possession of inherited estates for long years, 
and never doubted the security of their tenure, found 

* " In a memoir of the Great Col- taxation by the prostitution of Court 

bert I read the following words, favour, or the abuse of official pri- 

which are exactly descriptive of the vileges. These cases Colbert caused 

nature of the pretensions of the great to be investigated, and those who 

mass of the Lakhirajdars, and of the failed in making out a legal chiini to 

present measures of the Government: immunity were compelled to pay 

• Under the pernicious system which their sliare of the public burdens, to 

exempted the nobility from payment the relief of the labouring classes, on 

of direct taxes, a great number of wliom nearly the whole weight of tax- 

])ersons had fraudulently assumed aiion ieW.' "—See Lctkis of Gavht- 

titles and claimed rank, while another let, addressed to the Calcutta Faper» 

class had obtained immunity from o/'i838. 



RESUMPTION OPERATIONS. 171 

themselves suddenly deprived of their freeholds and lS3G-d6. 
compelled to pay or to go. That the State had been 
largely defrauded, at some time or other, is more 
than probable. Many, it is admitted, were in posses- 
sion who had originally no good title to the exemp- 
tion they enjoyed. But many also, whose titles were 
originally valid, could produce no satisfactory evi- 
dence of their validity ; so the fraudulent usurper 
and the rightful possessor were involved in one com- 
mon ruin. 

The success of these operations was loudly 
vaunted at the time. A social revolution had been 
accomplished, to the manifest advantage of the State, 
and at no cost, it was said, of popular discontent. 
The Bengalee is proverbially timid, patient, and long- 
suffering. But there were far-seeing men who said, 
even at that time, that thouo:h a strono; Government 
might do this with impunity in those lower provinces, 
they must beware how they attempt similar spoliation 
in other parts of India, especially in those from which 
the Native Army was recruited. If you do, it was 
prophetically said, you will some day find yourselves 
holding India only with European troops. The pro- 
bability of alienating by such measures the loyalty of 
the military classes was earnestly discussed in the 
European journals of Calcutta;* and it was said, by 
those who defended the measure, that it was not in- 
tended to extend these resumption operations to other 

* The following, written a quarter charitable foundations which it is 

of a century ago, affords a curious nowsought to conliscate and destroy, 

glimpse of the apprehensions even The alarm has not yet, we l)elieve, 

tlieu entertained by far-seeing men : spread to the Army, but it has not 

" We would just hint by the way to been without its causes of com- 

those who have planned this very plaints; and we would very cahuly 

extraordinary attack upon vested and respectfully put it to our rulers, 

rights, that the Sepoys are almost all whether it is wise or prudent to run 

landholders, many of them Brahmins, the risk, to which this Kebumptioa 

vvht)se families are supported by the measure would sooner or later in- 



Pi-oviucfS. 



172 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

183G-4G. parts of the country. But scarcely any part of the 
country escaped; scarcely any race of men, holding 
rent-free estates of any kind, felt secure in the posses- 
sion of rights and privileges which they had enjoyed 
under Mogul and Mahratta rule, and had believed 
that they could still enjoy under the Raj of the 
Christian ruler. 
Norih-West In the North-West Provinces it was part of the 
duty of the Settlement officer to inquire into rent-free 
tenures, and to resume or to release from assessment 
the lands thus held. The feelings with which the task 
imposed upon him was regarded varied with the 
character and the opinions of the functionary thus 
employed ; but whilst those w^ho Avere disposed to look 
compassionately upon doubtful claims, or believed 
that it would be sound policy to leave men in undis- 
turbed possession even of what might have been in 
the first instance unrighteously acquired, were few, 
the disciples of Bird and Thomason, who viewed all 
such alienations of revenue as unmixed evils, and 
considered that any respect shown to men who were 
described as " drones who do no good in the public 
hive" was an injury done to the tax-paying com- 
munity at large, were many and powerful, and left 
their impression on the land. Rejoicing in the great 
principle of the Dead-Level, the Board commonly 
supported the views of the resumptionist ; and but 
for the intervention of Mr. Robertson, the Lieutenant- 

fallibly lead. The native soldier has The Government may then learn 

lonf^ been in tiie habit of placing,' im- rather late that revenue is not the 

plicit reliance upon British faith and only thing needful, and that their 

iionour; but let the charm once be financial arithmetic, instead of niak- 

hroken, let the confiscation of rent- ing twice two equal to one, as Swift 

free land spread to those provinces says was the case in Ireland, may 

out of which our Army is recruited, end by extracting from tiie same 

and the consequences may be that ])rocess of multiplication just no- 

we shall very soon iiave to trust for thing at all." — Englishman^ Novem- 

>ur security to British troops alone, her 2, 1838. 



RESUMPTION OPERATIONS. 1 73 

Governor, there would scarcely, at the end of the 1838-46. 
Settlement operations, have been a rent-free tenure 
in the land. There was sometimes a show of justice 
on the side of resumption, for the immunity had been 
granted, in the first instance, as payment for service 
no longer demanded, or what had been originally 
merely a life-grant had assumed the character of an 
hereditary assignment. Perhaps there was sometimes 
more than suspicion that in unsettled times, when 
there was a sort of scramble for empire, privileges of 
this kind had been fabricated or usurped ; but in other 
instances strong proofs of validity were ignored, and 
it has been freely stated, even by men of their own 
order, that these earnest-minded civilians "rejected 
royal firmans and other authentic documents," and 
brought upon the great rent-roll of the Company 
lands which had been for many generations free from 
assessment. Nay, even the highest authority, in the 
great Settlement epoch, declared that "the Settle- 
ment officer swept up, without inquiry, every patch 
of unregistered land ; even those exempted by a sub- 
sequent order, which did not come out until five- 
sixths of the tenures had been resumed." In one 
district, that of Furruckabad, " the obligations of a 
treaty and the direct orders of Government were but 
lightly dealt with ; and in all, a total disregard was 
evinced for the acts even of such men as Warren 
Hastings and Lord Lake."* Li every case what was 
done was done conscientiously, in the assured belief 
that it was for the general good of the people ; but 
the very knowledge that was most vaunted, a know- 
ledge of the institutions and the temper of the natives, 

* Minute of Mr. Robertson, Lieu- tlie Court of Directors, August 13, 
lenant-Governor of the North- West 1851. 
Provinces, quoted iu Despatch of 



174 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

IS3G 40. was that which they most lacked. They were wre(;ked 
upon the dangerous coast of Little Learning. 

There were, however, it has been said, some men en- 
gaged in those great Settlement operations who were 
not smitten with this unappeasable earth-hunger, and 
who took altogether another view both of the duty 
and of the policy of the State. Mr. Mansel, of whose 
eager desire, so honourably evinced at a later period, 
to uphold the Native States of Lidia I have already 
spoken, was the principal exponent of these excep- 
tional opinions. " If it be of importance," he wrote, 
in his Report on the Settlement of the Agra District, 
" to conciliate the affections of the people, as well as 
to govern by the action of naked penal laws ; if it be 
important that the natural tendency of every part of 
native society in these provinces, to sink into one 
wretched level of poverty and ignorance, should, as a 
principle, be checked as far as possible by the acts of 
Government ; if it be important that the pride of 
ancestry and nobility, the valour of past times, and 
the national character of a country, should be che- 
rished in recollection, as ennobling feelings to the 
human mind, 1 know of no act to which I could 
point with more satisfaction, as a zealous servant of 
Government, than the generous manner in which the 
restoration of the family of the Buddawar Rajah to rank 
and fortune was made by the Lieutenant-Governor 
of Agra ; and I cannot refrain from allowing myself to 
echo, for the inhabitants of this part of the country, 
that feeling, in a report of necessity, largely con- 
nected with the welfare and happiness of the district 
of Agra." Mr. Robertson had granted the Buddawar 
Jagheer to the adopted son of the deceased Rajah, and 
it was the recognition of this adoption which so re- 
joiced the heart of the sympathising Settlement officer. 



RESUMPTION OPERATIONS. 175 

As the events of which I am about to write occurred, 1 817-52. 
for the most part, in Northern India, it is to the dis- 
turbing causes in that part of the country that the 
introductory section of this book is mainly devoted. 
But before it passes altogether away from the subject 
of Resumption, something should be said about the 
operations of that great confiscatory Tribunal knoAvn 
as the Inam Commission of Bombay. This was but Tlie Tnam 
the supplement oi a series oi measures, oi which it of Bombay 
would take a long time to write in detail. A great 
part of the territory, now constituting the Presidency 
of Bombay, was in 1817 conquered from the Peishwah. 
With conquest came the old difficulty, of which I 
have spoken* — the difficulty of dealing with the 
privileges and prescriptions, the vested interests of all 
kinds, territorial and official, derived from the Mah- 
ratta Government. As in Bengal and in the North- 
AVestern Provinces, these difficulties were greatly ag- 
gravated by delay. Had we instituted a searching 
inquiry at once, and resumed every doubtful tenure ; 
had we cancelled even the undoubted grants of former 
governments, and suddenly annulled all existing privi • 
leges, such proceedings in the eyes of the people would 
have been the intelligible tyranny of the conqueror, 
and, at all events, in accordance wdth the custom of 
the country. But our very desire to deal justly and 
generously with these privileged classes generated de- 
laid and unequal action. At different times, and in dif- 
ferent parts of Western India, these old alienations of 
Revenue were dealt with after different fashions ; and 
it was a source of bitter discontent that, under like 
circumstances, claims were settled by Government 
with far greater rigour in one part of the country 
than in another. 

♦ Aiife, page 1C7. 



176 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

^.^??. Years passed, various regulations were framed, for 

the most part of restricted operation ; and still, after 
the country had been for more than a third of a 
century under British rule, the great question of 
alienated revenue had only been partially adjusted. 
So in 1852 an act was passed, which empowered a 
little body of English officers, principally of the 
military profession — men, it was truly said, "not 
well versed in the principles of law, and wholly un- 
practised in the conduct of judicial inquiries" — to 
exercise arbitrary jurisdiction over thousands of 
estates, many of them held by men of high family, 
proud of their lineage, proud of their ancestral privi- 
leges, who had won what they held by the sword, and 
had no thought by any other means of maintaining 
possession. In the Southern Mahratta country there 
were large numbers of these Jagheerdars, who had 
never troubled themselves about title-deeds, who 
knew nothing about rules of evidence, and who had 
believed that long years of possession were more 
cogent than any intricacies of law. If they had ever 
held written proofs of the validity of their tenures, 
they had seldom been so provident as to preserve 
them. But, perhaps, they had never had better proof 
than the memory of a fierce contest, in the great 
gurdee-ka-wukht^ or time of trouble, which had pre- 
luded the dissolution of the Mahratta power in 
Western India, and placed the white man on the 
Throne of the Peishwah.* Year after year had 

* See the admirably-written me- mitted arms and retainers, with 

morial of Mr. G. li, Seton-Karr : whose aid they had learnt to con- 

" Chiefs, who had won their estates sider mere titles superfluous, as with- 

by the sword, had not been careful out it they were contemptible. In 

to fence them in with a paper barrier, other instances, men of local in- 

which they felt the next successful fluence and energetic character 

fidventurer would sweep away as un- having grasped at the lands which 

ceremoniously as themselves. In- lay within their reach in the general 

stead of parchments, they trans- scramble which preceded the down- 



THE INAM COMMISSION OF BOMBAY. 177 

passed, one generation had followed another in m;- I8?.lt 
disturbed possession, and the great seal of Time stood 
thern in stead of the elaborate technicalities of the 
Conveyancer. But the Inam Commission was esta- 
blished. The fame of it went abroad throughout the 
Southern Mahratta country. From one village to 
another passed the appalling news that the Commis- 
sioner had appeared, had called for titles that could 
not be produced, and that nothing but a general con- 
fiscation of property were likely to result from the 
operations of this mysterious Tribunal. "Each day," 
it has been said, " produced its list of victims ; and 
the good fortune of those who escaped but added to 
the pangs of the crowd who came forth from the 
shearing-house, shorn to the skin, unable to work, 
ashamed to beg, condemned to penury."* The titles 
of no less than thirty-five thousand estates, great and 
small, were called for by the Commission, and during 
the first five years of its operations, three-fifths of 1852-67. 
them were confiscated.! 

Whilst the operations of the Revenue Department Operation of 
were thus spreading alarm among the privileged Jt^^g^^^ 
classes in all parts of the country, the Judicial De- 
partment was doing its duty as a serviceable ally in 
the great war of extermination. Many of the old 
landed proprietors were stripped to the skin by the 
decrees of our civil courts. The sale of land iu 
satisfaction of these decrees was a process to which 
recourse was often had among a people inordinately 

fal of the Peishwah's Government, precarious title, or of no title at all, 

liad transmitted their acquisitions to found themselves suddenly brought 

the children, fortified by no better face to face with an apparatus, 

titles than entries in the village which, at successive strokes, pee'ed 

account-books, which a closer ex- away their possessions with the hr fs!i 

amination showed to be recent or precision of the planing machine " 
spurious. Housed from the dreams * Memorial of G. B. Seton-? aif. 
of thirty years, these proprietors of f Ibid. 

N 



178 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1830 56. addicted to litigation. We must not regard it alto- 
gether with English eyes ; for the Law had often 
nothing else to take. There was many a small landed 
proprietor whose family might have been established 
for centuries on a particular estate, with much pride 
of birth and aifection for his ancestral lands, but 
possessing movable goods and chattels not worth 
more than a few rupees. He might have owned a pair 
of small bullocks and a rude country cart consisting 
of two wheels and a few bamboos, but beyond such 
aids to husbandry as these, he had nothing but a 
drinking-vessel, a few cooking-pots, and the blankets 
which kept the dews oif at night. Justice in his 
case miofht not be satisfied without a surrender of his 
interests in the land, which constituted the main por- 
tion of his wealth.* So a large number of estates 
every year were put up to sale, under the decrees of 
the courts, in satisfaction of debts sometimes only of 
a few shillings, and bought by new men, perhaps from 
diiferent parts of the country, not improbably the 
agents or representatives of astute native function- 
aries from the lower provinces ; whilst the ancient 
proprietors, still rooted to the soil, shrunk into small 
farmers or under-tenants on their old ancestral do- 
mains. Thus a revolution of landed property was 
gradually brought about by means of English appli- 
cation, which, acting coin ciden tally with the other 
agencies of which I have spoken, swelled the number 

* I have stated here the principle Bengal Civil Service, in a Memoran- 

upon which tlie law was based. But dum before me, "estates put up for 

I believe that in many cases no pains sale for four rupees (eight sliillings), 

were taken to ascertain in the first which appears to me just the same as 

instance what were the movable if an English grocer, getting a decree 

goods of the debtor. Recourse was in a small-debt court against a squire 

had to the register of landed pro- for half a sovereign, |)ut up his estate 

perty, even when the debt amounted in Cheshire for the same, instead 

to no more than four or five rupees, of realising the debt by the sale of 

" I have seen," says an off "".er of the his silk umbrella." 



DEPRESSION OF THE UPPER CLASSES. 179 

of the disa,ifected, dangerous classes, who traced their 1836 56 
downfal to the operations of British rule, and sullenly 
bided their time for the recovery of what they had 
lost, in some new revolutionary epoch. 

This general system of depression, which, thus as- 
suming many different forms and exercising itself in 
many different ways, struck with uniform precision at 
the most cherished privileges of the upper classes, had 
not its orio^in in the fertile brain of Lord Dalhousie. 
He only confirmed and extended it ; confirmed it in 
our older provinces, and extended it to those which 
he had himself acquired. In the Punjab it sorely dis- 
quieted some few of our more chivalrous English 
officers connected with the Administration,* and it 
was carried into the Oude dominions, as will hereafter 
be shown, with a recklessness which in time brought 
down upon us a terrible retribution. Every new 
acquisition of territory made the matter much worse. 
Not merely because the privileged classes were in 
those territories struck down, but because the exten- 
sion of the British Raj gradually so contracted the 
area on which men of high social position, expelled by 
our system from the Company's provinces, could find 
profitable and honourable employment, that it seemed 
as though every outlet for native enterprise and ambi- 
tion were about to be closed against them. It was 
this, indeed, that made the great difference between 

* Sir Herbert Edwardes, in a state of the old officials and Sirdars." 

Memorandum quoted by Mr. Charles Of Henry Lawrence himself, Mr. 

Raikes in his graphic " Notes of the Raikes says : " He fought every 

Revolt of the North-West Provinces losing battle for the old chiefs and 

of India," says of Arthur Cocks, Jagheerdars with entire disregard for 

that he " imbibed Sir Henry Law- liis own interest, and at last left the 

rence's feelings, and became greatly Punjab, to use Colonel Edwardes's 

attached to the chiefs and people, words, dented all over with defeats 

He hardly stayed a year after annex- and disappointments, honourable 

ation, and left the Punjab because scars in the eyes of the bystanders." 
he could not bear to see the fallen 

N 2 



180 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1836-5G. resumptions of rent-free estates under the Native 
Governments and under our own. It has been said 
that under the former there was no security of tenure ; 
and it is true that the Native Princes did not consider 
themselves bound to maintain the grants of their pre- 
decessors, and often arbitrarily resumed them. But 
the door of honourable and lucrative employment 
was not closed against the sufferers. All the great 
offices of the State, civil and military, were open to the 
children of the soil. But it was not so in our British 
territories. There the dispossessed holder, no longer 
suffered to be an unprofitable drone, was not per- 
mitted to take a place among the working bees of the 
hive. And what place was there left for him, in 
which he could serve under other masters ? We had 
no room for him under us, and we left no place for 
him away from us. And so we made dangerous 
enemies of a large number of influential persons, 
among whom were not only many nobles of royal or 
princely descent, many military chiefs, with large 
bodies of retainers, and many ancient landholders 
for whom a strong feudal veneration still remained 
among the agricultural classes, but numbers of the 
Brahminical, or priestly order, who had been sup- 
ported by the alienated revenue which we resumed, 
and who turned the power which they exercised over 
the minds of others to fatal account in fomentino- 
popular discontent, and instilling into the minds of 
the people the poison of religious fear. 



Tlie Priest- Other measures were in operation at the same time, 

' the tendency of which was to disturb the minds and 

to inflame the hatred of the Priesthood. It seemed as 

though a great flood of innovation were about to 



BRAHMINISM. 181 

sweep away all their powers and their privileges. The iSiS-Sft. 
pale-faced Christian knight, with the great Excalibar 
of Truth in his hand, was cleaving right through all 
the most cherished fictions and superstitions of 
Brahminism. A new generation was springing up, 
without faith, without veneration; an inquiring, 
doubting, reasoning race, not to be satisfied with 
absurd doctrines or captivated by grotesque fables. 
The literature of Bacon and Milton was exciting a 
new appetite for Truth and Beauty ; and the exact 
sciences of the West, with their clear, demonstrable 
facts and inevitable deductions, were putting to shame 
the physical errors of Hindooism. A spirit of inquiry 
had been excited, and it was little likely ever to be 
allayed. It was plain that the inquirers were exalt- 
ing the Professor above the Pundit, and that the new 
teacher was fast displacing the old. 

Rightly to understand the stake for which the 
Brahmin was playing, and with the loss of which he 
was now threatened, the reader must keep before him 
the fact that Brahminism is the most monstrous 
system of interference and oppression that the world 
has ever yet seen, and that it could be maintained only 
by ignorance and superstition of the grossest kind. 
The people had been taught to believe that in all the 
daily concerns of life Brahminical ministrations were 
essential to worldly success. The Deity, it was 
believed, could be propitiated only by money-pay- 
ments to this favoured race of holy men. *' Every 
form and ceremony of religion," it has been said ; " all 
the public festivals ; all the accidents and concerns of 
life; the revolutions of the heavenly bodies; the 
superstitious fears of the people; births, sicknesses, 
marriages, misfortunes ; death ; a future state — have 
all been seized as sources of revenue to the Brahmins ^' 



182 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

IS^.S-5G. " The farmer does not reap his harvest without paying 
a Brahmin to perform some ceremony ; a tradesman 
cannot begin business without a fee to a Brahmin ; a 
fisherman cannot build a new boat, nor begin to fisli 
in a spot which he has farmed, without a ceremony 
and a fee."* "The Brahmin," says another and more 
recent writer, " does not only stand in a hierarchical, 
but also in the highest aristocratical position ; and 
he has an authoritative voice in all pursuits of in- 
dustry. All processes in other arts, as well as agri- 
culture, are supposed to have been prescribed and 
imparted through the Brahmins. Every newly-com- 
menced process of business, eYery new machine, or 
even repair of an old one, has to go through the cere- 
mony of ' poojah,' with a feeing of the Brahmin. "f 
And as the Brahmin was thus the controller of all the 
ordinary business concerns of his countrymen, so also 
was he the depositary of all the learning of the 
country, and the regulator of all the intellectual pur- 
suits of the people. There was, indeed, no such thing 
among them as purely secular education. " It is a 
marked and peculiar feature in the character of 
Hindooism," says another writer, himself by birth a 
Hindoo, " that instead of confining itself within the 
proper and lawful bounds prescribed to every theo- 
logical system, it interferes with and treats of every 
department of secular knowledge which human genius 
has ever invented ; so that grammar, geography, 
physics, law, medicine, metaphysics, &c., do each form 
as essential a part of Hindooism as any religious topic 
with which it is concerned. ... In their religious 
works they have treated of all the branches of secular 

* Ward on the Hindoos. is much interesting and valuable 

f Jeffreys on the "British Army matter, 
in India," Aj)pcndix, in which there 



PROGRESS OF ENLIGHTENMENT. 183 

knowledge known among them, in a regular, systematic 1845-56 
manner ; and have given them out to the world in a 
tone of absolute authority, from which there could be 
no appeal."* But the English had established a Court 
of Appeal of the highest order, and Brahminism was 
being continually cast in it. In a word, the whole 
hierarchy of India saw their power, their privileges, 
and their perquisites rapidly crumbling away from 
them, and they girded themselves up to arrest the 
devastation. 

All this had been going on for years ; but the pro- 
gress of enlightenment had been too slow, and its 
manifestations too little obtrusive, greatly to alarm 
the sacerdotal mind. As long as the receptacles of 
this new wisdom were merely a few clever boys in the 
great towns, and the manhood of the nation was still 
saturated and sodden with the old superstition, Brah- 
minism might yet flourish. But when these boys 
grew up in time to be heads of families, rejoicing in 
what they called their freedom from prejudice, laugh- 
ing to scorn their ancestral faith as a bundle of old 
wives' fables, eating meat and drinking wine, and 
assuming some at least of the distinguishing articles 
of Christian apparel, it was clear that a very serious 
peril was beginning to threaten the ascendancy of the 
Priesthood. They saw that a reformation of this 
kind once commenced, would work its way in time 
through all the strata of society. They saw that, as 
new provinces were one after another brought under 
British rule, the new light must difl'use itself more and 
more, until there would scarcely be a place for Hin- 
dooism to lurk unmolested. And some at least, con- 
founding cause and effect, began to argue that all this 
annexation and absorption was brought about for the 

* Calcutta Review^ vol. xi. Article : " Physical Errors of Hindooism." 



184 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

] 848-56. express purpose of overthrowing the ancient faiths of 
the country, and establishing a new religion in theii 
place. 
Education. Every monstrous lie exploded, every abominable 
practice suppressed, was a blow struck at the Priest- 
hood ; for all these monstrosities and abominations 
had their root in Hindooism, and could not be eradi- 
cated without sore disturbance and confusion of the 
soil. The murder of women on the funeral-pile, the 
murder of little children in the Zenana, the murder of 
the sick and the aged on the banks of the river, the 
murder of human victims, reared and fattened for the 
sacrifice, were all religious institutions, from which 
the Priesthood derived either profit, power, or both. 
Nay, even the wholesale strangling of unsuspecting 
travellers was sanctified and ceremonialised by re- 
ligion. Now all these cruel rites had been sup- 
pressed, and, what was still worse in the eyes of the 
Brahmins, the foul superstitions which nurtured them 
were fast disappearing from the land. Authority 
might declare their wickedness, and still they might 
exist as part and parcel of the faith of the people. 
But when Reason demonstrated their absurdity, and 
struck conviction into the very heart of the nation, 
there was an end of both the folly and the crime. 
The Law might do much, but Education would as- 
suredly do much more to sweep away all these time- 
honoured superstitions. Education, pure and simple 
in its secularity, was quite enough in itself to hcAV 
down this dense jungle of Hindooism ; but when it 
was seen that the functions of the English school- 
master and of the Christian priest were often united 
in the same person, and that high officers of the State 
were present at examinations conducted by chaplains 
or missionaries, a fear arose lest even secular educa- 



PROGRESS OF ENLIGHTENMENT. 1 85 

tion miglit be the mask of proselytism, and so the 1848-56. 
Brahmins began to alarm the minds of the elder 
members of the Hindoo community, who abstained, 
under priestly influence, from openly countenancing 
what they had not the energy boldly to resist.* 

And, every year the danger increased. Every 
year were there manifestations of a continually in- 
creasing desire to emancipate the natives of India 
from the gross superstitions which enchained them. 
One common feeling moved alike the English Govern- 
ment and the English community. In other matters 
of State-policy there might be essential changes, but 
in this there was no change. One Governor might 
replace another, but only to evince an increased hos- 
tility to the great Baal of Hindooism. And in no 
man was there less regard for time-honoured abomi- 
nations and venerable absurdities — in no man did 
the zeal of iconoclasm work more mightily than 
in Lord Dalhousie. During no former administra- 
tion had the vested interests of Brahminism in moral 
and material error been more ruthlessly assailed. 
There was nothing systematic in all this. Almost, 
indeed, might it be said that it was unconscious. 
It was simply the manifestation of such love as any 
clear-sighted, strong-headed man may be supposed 
to have for truth above error, for intelligent pro- 
gress above ignorant stagnation. From love of 
ihis kind, from the assured conviction that it was 
equally humane and politic to substitute the strength 
and justice of British administration for what he 
regarded as the effete tyrannies of the East, had 
emanated the annexations which had distino^uished 

* The English journalisfs some- *'We cannot help expressing great 

times remarked in their reports of surprise at the absence ol natives of 

tliese school-examinations upon the influence." — Benjal Hut karu, March 

absence of the native gentry—^, g. : 14, ]853. 



186 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE 

1818-56. his rule. And as he desired for the good of the people 
to extend the territorial rule of Great Britain, so he 
was eager also to extend her moral rule, and to make 
those people subject to the powers of light rather 
than of darkness. And so he strove mightily to ex- 
tend among them the blessings of European civilisa- 
tion, and the Priesthood stood aghast at the sight of 
the new things, moral and material, by which they 
were threatened. 

Many and portentous were these menaces. Not 
only was Government Education, in a more syste- 
matised and pretentious shape than before, rapidly 
extending its network over the whole male popula- 
tion of the country, but even the fastnesses of the 
female apartments were not secure against the intru- 
sion of the new learning and new philosophy of the 
West. Eno;land had be^-un to take account of its 
short- comings, and, among all the reproaches heaped 
upon the Company, none had been so loud or so 
general as the cry that, whilst they spent millions on 
AVar, they grudged hundreds for purposes of Edu- 
cation. So, in obedience to this cry, instructions had 
been sent out to India, directing larger, more com- 
prehensive, more systematic measures for the instruc- 
tion of the people, and authorising increased expendi- 
ture upon them. Whilst great Universities were to 
be established, under the immediate charge of the 
Government, the more humble missionary institu- 
tions were to be aided by grants of public money, 
and no effort was to be spared that could conduce to 
the spread of European knowledge. It was plain to 
the comprehension of the guardians of Eastern learn- 
ing, that what had been done to unlock the flood- 
gates of the West, would soon appear to be as 
nothing in comparison with the great tide of Euro- 



PROGRESS OF ENLIGHTENMENT. 187 

pean civilisation which was about to be poured out 184.8-56. 
upon them. 

Most alarming of all were the endeavours made, Female Eda- 
during Lord Dalhousie's administration, to penetrate ^^^^^"* 
the Zenanawith our new learning and our new customs. 
The English at the large Presidency towns began to 
systematise their efforts for the emancipation of the 
female mind from the utter ignorance which had been 
its birthright, and the wives and daughters of the 
white men began to aid in the work, cheered and en- 
couraged by the sympathies of their sisters at home. 
For the first time, the education of Hindoo and 
Mahomedan females took, during the administration 
of Lord Dalhousie, a substantial recognised shape. 
Before it had been merely a manifestation of mis- 
sionary zeal addressed to the conversion of a few 
orphans and castaways. But now, if not the imme- 
diate work of the Government in its corporate capacity, 
it was the pet project and the especial charge of a Mr. Beihunc 
member of the Government, and, on his death, passed 
into the hands of the Governor- General himself, and 
afterwards was adopted by the Company's Govern- 
ment. Some years before, the Priesthood, secure in 
the bigotry and intolerance of the heads of families, 
mio^ht have lauo^hed these efforts to scorn. But now 
young men, trained under English Professors, were 
becoming fathers and masters, sensible of the great 
want of enlightened female companionship, and ill- 
disposed to yield obedience to the dogmas of the 
Priests. So great, indeed, was this yearning after 
something more attractive and more satisfying than 
the inanity of the Zenana, that the courtesans of the 
Calcutta Bazaars taught themselves to play on in- 
struments, to sing songs, and to read poetry, that 
thereby they might lure from the dreary environ- 



188 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1855-56. ments of their vapid homes the very flower of Young 
Bengal. 
Re-marriage About the Same time the wedge of another startling 
of Hindoo innovation was beino; driven into the very heart of 

VVlQOVVS. * '^ 

Hindoo Society. Among the many cruel wrongs to 
which the womanhood of the nation was subjected was 
the institution which forbade a bereaved wife ever to 
re-marry. The widow who did not burn was con- 
demned to perpetual chastity. Nay, it has been 
surmised that the burning inculcated in the old re- 
ligious writings of the Hindoos was no other than 
that which, centuries afterwards, the great Christian 
teacher forbade, saying that it is better to marry than 
to burn. Be this as it may, the re-marriage of Hindoo 
widows was opposed both to the creeds and the 
customs of the land. It was an evil and a cruel thing 
itself, and the prolific source of other evils. Evil and 
cruel would it have been in any country and under 
any institutions, but w^here mere children are married, 
often to men advanced in years, and are left widows, 
in tender youth, when they have scarcely looked upon 
their husbands, its cruelty is past counting. To the 
more enlio^htened Hindoos, trained in our Enfrlish 
colleges and schools, the evils of this prohibition were 
so patent and so distressing, that they were fain to see 
it abrogated by law. One of their number wrote a 
clever treatise in defence of the re-marriage of widows, 
and thousands signed a petition, in Avhich a belief 
was expressed that perpetual widowhood was not en- 
joined by the Hindoo scriptures. But the orthodox 
party, strong in texts, greatly outnumbered, and, 
judged by the standard of Hindooism, greatly out- 
argued them. The Law and the Prophets were on 
their side. It was plain that the innovation would 
inflict another deadly blow on the old Hindoo law of 



PROGRESS OF ENLIGHTENMENT. 189 

inheritance. Already had dire offence been given to 1855-56 
the orthodoxy of the land by the removal of those 
disabilities which forbade all who had forsaken their 
ancestral faith to inherit ancestral property. A law 
had been passed, declaring the abolition of " so much 
of the old law or usage as inflicted on any person 
forfeiture of rights or property, by reason of his or 
her renouncing, or having been excluded from, the 
communion of any religion." Against this the old 
Hindoos had vehemently protested, not Avithout 
threats, as a violation of the pledges given by the 
British Government to the natives of India ; pledges, 
they said, issued in an hour of weakness and revoked 
in an hour of strength.* But Lord Dalhousie had 
emphatically recorded his opinion " that it is the 
duty of the State to keep in its own hands the right 
of regulating succession to property," and the Act had 
been passed. And now there was further authorita- 
tive interference on the part of the State, for it was 
proposed to bestow equal rights of inheritance on the 
offspring of what the old-school Hindoos declared to 
be an illicit, God-proscribed connexion. This, how- 
ever, was but a part of the evil. Here was another step 
towards the complete emancipation of woman ; and 
Hindoo orthodoxy believed, or professed to believe, 
that if widows were encouraged to marry new hus- 
bands instead of burning with the corpses of the old, 

* The Bengal Memorial said : changed into sullen submission to 
" Your memorialists will not concecil tiieir will, and obedience to their 
that from the moment the proposed power." The Madras Memorial 
act becomes a part of the law appli- was couched in much stronger Ian- 
cable to Hindoos, that confidence guage. It denounced the raeasure 
which they hitherto felt in the pa- as a direct act of tyranny, and said 
ternal character of their British that the British Government, "tread- 
rulers will be most materially shaken, ing the path of oppression," "would 
No outbreak, of course, is to be well deserve what it will assuredly 
dreaded ; but the active spirit of fer- obtain — the hatred and detestation 
vent loyalty to tiieir sovereign will be of the oppressed." 



190 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1855-5G. wives would be induced to make themselves widows 
by poisoning or otherwise destroying their lords. It 
was apprehended, too — and not altogether without 
reason* — that the re-marriage of Hindoo widows 
would soon be followed by a blow struck at Hindoo 
polygamy, especially in its worst but most honoured 
form of Kulinism ; and so the Brahmins, discomfited 
and alarmed by these innovations, past, present, and 
prospective, strove mightily to resist the tide, and 
to turn the torrent of destruction back upon their 
enemies.f 
TbeHuilway Nor was it only by the innovations of moral 
awd the Tele- pj^Qorress that the hierarchy of India were alarmed 

graph. r o ^ J 

and offended. The inroads and encroachments of 
physical science were equally distasteful and dis- 
quieting. A privileged race of men, who had been 
held in veneration as the depositaries of all human 
knowledge, were suddenly shown to be as feeble and 
impotent as babes and sucklings. It was no mere 
verbal demonstration ; the arrogant self-assertion of 
the white man, which the Hindoo Priesthood could 
contradict or explain away. There were no means of 
contradicting or explaining away the railway cars, 

* See the following passage of a cjuent desertion of them, was an in- 

speech delivered by Mr. Barnes Pea- jury to society, and therefore that it 

cock, in llie Legislative Council, should be illegal to do so. He" 

July 19, 1S56: "There was a great (Mr. Peacock) "maintained that it 

distinction between preventing a man was the duty of the Legislature, in 

from doing that which his religion such a case, to prevent him from 

directed him to do, and preveniing doing that which his religion merely 

liim from doing that which his re- permitted, but did not command him 

ligion merely allowed him to do. If to do." 

a man were to say that liis religion f The " Bill to remove all legal 

did not forbid polygamy, and there- obstacles to the marriage of Hindoo 

fore that he might marry as many w^idows," though introduced and dis- 

wives as he pleased, when it was cussed during the administration of 

impossible for him to carry out the Lord Dalhousie, was not finally 

contract of marriage, it would be no passed till after his retirement. It 

interference with his religion for the received the assent of Lord Carning 

Legislature to say that the marrving in July, 185G. 
of a hundred wives, and the subse- 



MATERIAL PROGRESS. 191 

whicli travelled, without horses or bullocks, at iKe 1848-50 
rate of thirty miles an hour, or the electric wires, 
which in a few minutes carried a message across the 
breadth of a whole province. 

These were facts that there was no gainsaying. He 
who ran might read. The prodigious triumphs over 
time and space achieved by these '^ fire- carriages " 
and "lightning-posts," put to shame the wisdom of 
the Brahmins, and seemed to indicate a command 
over the supernatural agencies of the Unseen World, 
such as the Pundits of the East could never attain or 
simulate. They, who for their OAvn ends had im- 
parted a sacred character to new inventions, and had 
taught their disciples that all improvements in art 
and science were derived from the Deity through 
their especial intercession, and were to be inaugu- 
rated with religious ceremonies attended with the 
usual distribution of largesses to the priests, now 
found that the white men could make the very ele- 
ments their slaves, and call to their aid miraculous 
powers undreamt of in the Brahminical philosophy. 
Of what use was it any longer to endeavour to per- 
suade the people that the new knowledge of the 
West was only a bundle of shams and impostures, 
when any man might see the train come in at a 
given moment, and learn at Benares how many 
pounds of flour were sold for the rupee that morn- 
ino; in the bazaars of Delhi and Calcutta? 

To the introduction into India of these mysterious 
agencies the Hour and the Man were alike propi- 
tious. When Lord Dalhousie went out to India, 
England was just recovering from the effects of that 
over-activity of speculation which had generated such 
a disturbance of the whole financial system of tho 
country. She had ceased to project lines of Railway 



192 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1848.56. between towns without Traffic, and through countries 
without Population, and had subsided, after mucli 
suffering, into a healthy state of reasonable enter- 
prise, carefully estimating both her wants and her 
resources. As President of the Board of Trade, 
Dalhousie had enjoyed the best opportunities of ac- 
quainting himself with the principles and with the 
details of the great question of the day, at the one 
central point to which all information converged, 
and he had left England with the full determination, 
God willing, not to leave the country of his adoption 
until he had initiated the construction of great trunk- 
roads of iron between all the great centres of Govern- 
ment and of Commerce, and had traversed, at rail- 
way speed, some at least of their first stages. A 
little while before, the idea of an Indian railway had, 
in the estimation of the greater number of English 
residents, been something speculative and chimerical, 
encouraged only by visionaries and enthusiasts. A 
few far-seeing men, foremost among whom was Mac- 
donald Stephenson, predicted their speedy establish- 
ment, and with the general acceptance of the nation ; 
but even after Dalhousie had put his hand to the 
work, and the Company had responded to his efforts, 
it was the more general belief that railway commu- 
nication in India would be rather a concern of Go- 
vernment, useful in the extreme for military pur- 
poses, than a popular institution supplying a national 
want. It was thought that Indolence, Avarice, and 
Superstition would keep the natives of the country 
from flocking to the Railway Station. But with 
a keener appreciation of the inherent power of so 
demonstrable a benefit to make its own way, even 
a^rainst these moral obstructions, Dalhousie had full 
faith in the result. He was right. The people now 



MATERIAL PROGRESS. 193 

learnt to estimate at its full worth tlie great truth ^Siwfc 
that Time is Money; and having so learned, they 
were not to be deterred from profiting by it by 
any tenderness of respect for the feelings of their 
spiritual guides. 

That the fire-carriage on the iron road was a heavy 
blow to the Brahminical Priesthood is not to be 
doubted. The lightning post, which sent invisible 
letters through the air and brought back answers, 
from incredible distances, in less time than an or- 
dinary messenger could bring them from the next 
street, was a still greater marvel and a still greater 
disturbance. But it was less patent and obtrusive. 
Tlie one is the natural complement of the other ; and 
Dalhousie, aided by the genius of O'Shaughnessy, 
had soon spread a network of electric wires across 
the whole length and breadth of the country. It was 
a wise thing to do ; a right thing to do ; but it was 
alarming and ofi'ensive to the Brahminical mind. It 
has been said, that as soon as we had demonstrated 
that the earth is a sphere revolving on its axis, there 
was an end to the superstitions of Hindooism. And 
so there was — in argument, but not in fact. The 
Brahminical teachers insisted that the new doctrines 
of Western civilisation were mere specious inventions, 
with no groundwork of eternal truth, and as their 
disciples could not bring the test of their senses to 
such inquiries as these, they succumbed to authority 
rather than to reason, or perhaps lapsed into a state 
of bewildering doubt. But material experiments, so 
palpable and portentous that they might be seen at a 
distance of many miles, convinced whilst they as- 
tounded. The most ignorant and unreasoning of 
men could see that the thing was done. They knew 
that Brahminism had never done it. They saw plainly 

o 



194 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1848-56. the fact that there were wonderful things in the world 
which their own Priests could not teach them — of 
which, indeed, with all their boasted wisdom, they 
had never dreamt ; and from that time the Hindoo 
Hierarchy lost half its power, for the People lost half 
their faith. 
Caste. But clear as was all this, and alarming as were the 
prospects thus unfolded to the Pundits, there was 
something more than this needed to disturb the 
popular mind. Hindooism might be assailed; Hin- 
dooism might be disproved ; and still men might go 
about their daily business without a fear for the future 
or a regret for the past. But there was something 
about which they disturbed themselves much more 
than about the abstract truths of their religion. The 
great institution of Caste was an ever-present reality. 
It entered into the commonest concerns of life. It was 
intelligible to the meanest understanding. Every 
man, woman, and child knew what a terrible thing it 
would be to be cast out from the community of the 
brotherhood, and condemned to live apart, abhorred 
of men and forsaken by God. If, then, the people 
could be taught that the English by some insidious 
means purposed to defile the Hindoos, and to bring 
them all to a dead level of one-caste or of no-caste, a 
great rising of the Natives might sweep the Fo- 
reigners into the sea. This was an obvious line of 
policy; but it was not a policy for all times. It 
needed opportunity for its successful development. 
Equally patient and astute, the Brahmin was content 
to bide his time rather than to risk anything by an 
inopportune demonstration. The English were loud 
in their professions of toleration, and commonly cau' 
tious in their practice. Still it was only in the nature 
of things that they should some day make a false step. 
As the Brahmin thus lay in wait, eager for his 



PRISON DISCIPLINE. 195 

opportunity to strike, he thought he espied, perhaps 1845-66. 
in an unexpected quarter, a safe point of attack. It 
required some monstrous invention, very suitable to The Messing 
troubled times, but only to be circulated with success Gaols"^ "^ 
after the popular mind, by previous excitement, had 
been prepared to receive it, to give any colour of pro- 
bability to a report that the Government had laid a 
plot for the defilement of the whole mass of the 
people. But there were certain classes with which 
Government had a direct connexion, and whose bodies 
and souls were in the immediate keeping of the State. 
Among these were the inmates of our gaols. As 
these people were necessarily dependent upon Govern- 
ment for their daily food, it appeared to be easy, by 
a well-devised system of Prison Discipline, either to 
destroy the caste of the convicts or to starve them to 
death. The old tolerant regulations allowed every 
man to cater and to cook for himself. A money- 
allowance was granted to him, and he turned it into 
food after his own fashion. But this system was very 
injurious to prison discipline. Men loitered over 
their cooking and their eating and made excuses to 
escape work. So the prisoners were divided into 
messes, according to their several castes ; rations were 
issued to them, and cooks were appointed to prepare 
the daily meals at a stated hour of the day. If the 
cook were of a lower caste than the eaters, the neces- 
sary result was the contamination of the food and 
loss of caste by the whole mess. The new system, 
therefore, was one likely to be misunderstood and 
easily to be misinterpreted. Here, then, waa one of 
those openings which designing men were continually 
on the alert to detect, and in a fitting hour it was 
turned to account. Not merely the inmates of the 
gaols, but ihe inhabitants of the towns in which pri- 

o2 



196 THE AD^UNISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1845-5G. sons were located, were readily made to "believe that 
it was the intention of the British Government to 
destroy the caste of the prisoners, and forcibly to 
convert them to Christianity. It mattered not whe- 
ther Brahmin cooks had or had not, in the first in- 
stance, been appointed. There might be a Brahmin 
cook to-day ; and a low-caste man in his place to- 
morrow. So the lie had some plausibility about it ; 
and it went abroad that this assault upon the gaol- 
birds was but the beginning of the end, and that by 
a variety of different means the rehgions of the 
country would soon be destroyed by the Government 
of the Feringhees. 

Reports of this kind commonly appear to be of 
Hindoo origin; for they are calculated primarily 
to alarm the minds of the people on the score 
of the destruction of caste. But it seldom hap- 
pens that they are not followed by some auxiliary 
lies expressly designed for Mahomedan reception. 
The Mahomedans had some especial grievances of 
their own. The tendency of our educational mea- 
sures, and the all-pervading Englishism with which 
the country was threatened, was to lower the dignity 
of Mahomedanism, and to deprive of their emoluments 
many influential people of that intolerant faith. The 
Moulavees were scarcely less alarmed by our innova- 
tions than the Pundits. The Arabic of the one fared 
no better than the Sanskrit of the other. The use 
of the Persian language in our law courts was abo- 
lished ; new tests for admission into the Public Service 
cut down, if they did not wholly destroy, their 
chances of official employment. There was a general 
inclination to pare away the privileges and the per- 
quisites of the principal Mahomedan seats of learning. 
All the religious endowments of the great Calcutta 



MAHOMED AN ALARMS. 197 

Madrissa were annihilated ; and the prevalence of the 1845-56. 
English language, English learning, and English law, 
made the Mahomedan doctors shrink into insignifi- 
cance, whilst the resumption of rent-free tenures, 
which, in many instances, grievously aiFected old 
Mussulman families, roused their resentments more 
than all the rest, and made them ripe for sedition. 
A more active, a more enterprising, and a more in- 
triguing race than the Hindoos, the latter knew well 
the importance of associating them in any design 
against the State.* So their animosities were stimu- 
lated, and their sympathies were enlisted, by a report, 
sedulously disseminated, to the effect that the British 
Government were about to issue an edict prohibiting 
circumcision, and compelling Mahomedan women to 
go abroad unveiled. 

Small chance would there have been of such a lie 
as this fiinding a score of credulous Mussulmans to 
believe it. if it had not been for the little grain of 
truth that there was in the story of the messing- 
system in the gaols. The innovation had been origi- 
nated some years before Lord Dalhousie appeared 
upon the scene. At first it had been introduced with 

* It must be admitted, liowever, to the English language, have pro- 
that it is a moot question, in many duced the greatest discontent and 
instances, whether tlie first move- the bitterest animosity against our 
ment were made by the Hindoos or government, finding that the en- 
tile Mahomedans. Good authorities tbrcement of the messing-system in 
sometimes incline to the latter sup- the gaols had produced a consider- 
position. Take, for example, the fol- able sensation amongst the people, 
lowing, which has reference to a se- were determined to improve the op- 
ditious movement at Patna in the portunity, especially as our troops 
cold season of 1845-46 : "From were weak in numbers, and we were 
inquiries I have made," wrote Mr. supposed to be pressed in the North- 
Dam.pier, Superintendent of Police West." Of the event to which this 
in the Lower Provinces, " in every refers, more detailed mention will be 
quarter, I am of opinion that the found in a subsequent chapter of this 
Mahomedans of these parts, amongst work, in connexion with the attempt 
whom the resumption of the Maa- then made to corrupt the regiments 
fee Tenures, the new educational at Dinapore. 
system, and the encouragement given 



198 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

184546. a discretion signifying a full knowledge of tlie lurking 
danger ;* but, as time advanced, one experiment fol- 
lowed another, and some of the old caution was 
perhaps relaxed. So in many places the prisoners 
broke into rebellion and violently resisted the pro- 
posed change. Eager and excited, under the influ- 
ence of a common alarm, the townspeople cheered 
them on, and were ready to aid them, mth all their 
might, in what they believed to be the defence of 
their religion. At Shahabad, Sarun, Behar, and 
Patna, there were serious disturbances, and at a later 
1852. period, Benares, the very nursery and hotbed of 
Hindooism, the cherished home of the Pundits, was 
saved only by prudential concessions, ir.ow becoming 
the scene of a sanguinary outbreak. 
The Hindoo The experience thus gained of the extreme sensi- 
ftndhis Lotah, ^^y^-i^ggg q£ ^]^g native mind, given up as it was to 

gross delusions, does not appear to have borne the 
fruit of increased caution and forbearance. For not 
long afterwards another improvement in prison disci- 
pline again stirred up revolt in the gaols ; and, for the 
same reason as before, the people sided mth the con- 
victs. A Hindoo, or a Hindooised Mahomedan, is 
nothing without his Lotah. A Lotah is a metal 
drinking-vessel, which he religiously guards against 
defilement, and which he holds as a cherished posses- 
sion when he has nothing else belonging to him in 
the world. But a brass vessel may be put to other 
uses than that of holding water. It may brain a 
magistrate, f or flatten the face of a gaoler, and truly 

* See Circular Orders of Lieu- offend tlie religious prejudices of the 

tenant-Governor of the North-West people, or injure the future prospects 

Provinces, July, 1841: — "Govern- of those who may be subjected to 

mcnt are of opinion that these mea- temporary imprisonment." 
sures ought not to be compulsorily f My earliest recollection of India 

enforced, if there be any good ground is associated with the sensation 

to believe that they will violate or created in Calcutta, in April, 1834, 



PRISON OUTBREAKS. 199 

it was a formidable weapon in the hands of a despe- 1355. 
rate man. So an attempt was made in some places 
to deprive the prisoners of their lotahs, and to sub- 
stitute earthenware vessels in their place. Here, 
then, in the eyes of the people, was another insidious 
attempt to convert prison discipline into a means of 
religious persecution — another attempt covertly to 
reduce them all to one caste. So the prisoners re- 
sisted the experiment, and in more than one place 
manifested their resentment with a fury which was 
shared by the population of the towns. At Arrah 
the excitement was so great that the guards were 
ordered to fire upon the prisoners, and at MozuiFer- 
pore, in Tirhoot, so formidable was the outburst of 
popular indignation, that the magistrate, in grave 
official language, described it as "a furious and alto- 
gether unexpected outbreak on the part of the people 
of the town and district in support and sympathy 
w4th the prisoners." The rioters, it was said, '' in- 
cluded almost all the inhabitants of the town, as well 
as a vast number of ryots, who declared that they 
would not go away until the lotahs were restored;" 
and so great was the danger of the prisoners escaping, 
of their plundering the Treasury and pillaging the 
town, before the troops which had been sent for could 
be brought up, that the civil authorities deemed it 
expedient to pacify the insurgents by restoring the 
lotahs to the people in the gaols. And this was not 
held at the time to be a sudden outburst of rash and 
misguided ignorance, but the deliberate work of some 
of the rich native inhabitants of the town, and some 
of the higher native functionaries of our Civil 
Courts. 

when Mr. Richardson, magistrate of Alipore gaol by a blow from a brasi 
the 2-1 Pergunnahs, was killed in lotah. 



200 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 

1856. It was clear, indeed, tliat the inflammability of the 

native mind Avas continually increasing; and that 
there were many influential persons, both Hindoo 
and Mahomedan, running over with bitter resent- 
ments against the English, who were eagerly awaiting 
a favourable opportunity to set all these combustible 
materials in a blaze. The gaol-business was an ex- 
periment, and, as far as it went, a successful one. But 
it was not by an outbreak of the convict population 
that the overthrow of the English was to be accom- 
plished. There was another class of men, equally 
und<M' the control of the Government, wdiose cor- 
ruption would far better repay the labours of tho 
Modavees aud the Piinditi* 



THE SEPOY ARMY. 201 



BOOK II.— THE SEPOY AEMY. 
[1756—1856.] 



CHAPTER I. 

THE SEPOY AUMT OF THE COMPANY — ITS HISE AND PROGRESS— t!r£ 71 RST 
MUTINY IN BENGAL — DETERIORATING INFLUENCES — DEGRirATION 0? 
THE NATIVE OFFICER — THE REORGANISATION OF 1796 — PROG.IESS OF IN- 
NOVATION—THE MUTINY OF VELLORE — LATER SIGNS OF DISAFFECTION- 
CAUSES OF THE MUTINY. 

Whilst tlie hearts of the Aristocracy and of the ^ 1856. 
Priesthood of the country were thus turned against 
the government of the English, there was a third ^ 
great class, esteemed to be more powerful than all,' 
whom it was believed that our policy had p^pitiated. 
There was security in the thought that the Soldiery 
were with us. It was the creed of English statesmen 
that India had been won by the Sword, and must be 
retained by the Sword. And so long as we held the 
sword firmly in our hands, there was but little -ippre- 
hension of any internal danger. The British power 
in the East was fenced in and fortified by an army ^ 
of three hundred thousand men. 

A small part only of this Army was composed of 
our own countrymen. Neither the manhood of Eng- 
land nor the revenues of India could supply the 
means of defending the country only with British 
troops. A large majority of our fighting-men were, T . 
therefore natives of India, trained, disciplined, and 



202 THE SEPOY ARMY — ^ITS RISE AKD PROGRESS. 

1756-1856. equipped after the English fashion. We had first 
learnt from the French the readiness with which the 
" Moors" and the " Gentoos" could be made to adapt 
themselves to the habits and forms of European war- 
fare, and, for a hundred years, we had been im- 
proving on the lesson. Little by little, the handful 
of Blacks which had helped Robert Olive to win the 
battle of Plassey had swollen into the dimensions of 
a gigantic army. It had not grown with the growth 
of the territory w^hich it was intended to defend ; 
but still, nerved and strengthened by such European 
regiments as the exigencies of the parent state could 
spare for the service of the outlying dependency, it 
"was deemed to be of sufficient extent to support the 
Government which maintained it against all foreign 
enmity and all intestine revolt. 

It was, doubtless, a strange and hazardous experi- 
ment upon the forbearance of these disciplined native 
fighting- men, held only by the bondage of the Salt in 
allegiance to a trading Company which had usurped 
the authority of their Princes and reduced their 
countrymen to subjection. But it was an experi- 
ment which, at the date of the commencement of 
this history, had stood the test of more than a cen- 
tury of probation. The fidelity of the Native Army 
,- of India was an established article of our faith. Tried 
in many severe conjunctures, it had seldom been 
found wanting. The British Sepoy had faced death 
without a fear, and encountered every kind of suf- 
fering and privation without a murmur. Commanded 
by officers whom he trusted and loved, though of 
another colour and another creed, there was nothing, 
it was said, which he w^ould not do, there was no- 
thing which he would not endure. In an extremity 
of hunger, he had spontaneously offered his scanty 



DALHGUSIE ON THE SEPOY ARJNIY. 20 



food to sustain the robuster energies of his English 175G-185a 
comrade. He had planted the colours of his regi- 
ment on a spot which European valour and perse- 
verance had failed to reach. He had subscribed 
from his slender earnings to the support of our 
European wars. He had cheerfully consented, when 
he knew that his Government was in need, to forego 
that regular receipt of pay, which is the very life- 
blood of foreign service. History for a hundred 
years had sparkled with examples of his noble 
fidelity ; and there were few who did not believe, in 
spite of some transitory aberrations, that he would be 
true to the last line of the chapter. 

If there were anything, therefore, to disturb the ^^^C. 
mind of Lord Dalhousie when he laid down the reins 
of government on that memorable spring morning, 
the trouble which oppressed him was not the growth 
of any mistrust of the fidelity of the Sepoy. " Hardly 
any circumstance of his condition," he said, in his 
Farewell Minute, " is in need of improvement." And 
there were few who, reading this passage, the very 
slenderness of which indicated a more settled faith in 
the Sepoy than the most turgid sentences could have 
expressed, did not feel the same assurance that in 
that direction there was promise only of continued 
repose. It was true that Asiatic armies were ever 
prone to revolt — that we had seen Mahratta armies 
and Sikh armies, Arab armies and Goorkha armies, 
all the military races of India indeed, at some time 
or other rising in mutiny against their Government, 
and perhaps overthrowing it. But fifty years had 
passed away since the minds of our British rulers had 
been seriously disturbed by a fear of military revolt, 
and that half century, it was believed, had brought 
full conviction home to the understanding of the Sepoy 



204 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

1856. that the Company was a good and generous master, 
whose colours it was a privilege to bear. Outwardly, 
there was only a great calm ; and it was not thought 
that beneath that smooth surface there were any 
latent dangers peculiar to the times. The Sepoy was 
esteemed to be " faithful to a proverb ;" and his 
fidelity was the right arm of our strength. 



Our first Sepoy levies were raised in the Southern 
Peninsula, when the English and the French powers 
were contending for the dominant influence in that 
part of the country. They were few in number, and 
at the outset commonly held in reserve to support 
our European fighting -men. But, little by little, they 
proved that they were worthy to be entrusted with 
higher duties, and, once trusted, they went boldly to 
the front. Under native commandants, for the most 
part Mahomedans or high-caste Rajpoot Hindoos, but 
disciplined and directed by the English captain, their 
pride was flattered and their energies stimulated by 
the victories they gained. How they fought in the 
attack of Madura, how they fought in the defence of 
Arcot, how they crossed bayonets, foot to foot, with 
the best French troops at Cuddalore, historians have 
delighted to tell. All the power and all the respon- 
sibility, all the honours and rewards, were not then 
monopolised by the English captains. Large bodies 
of troops were sometimes despatched, on hazardous 
enterprises, under the independent command of a 
native leader, and it was not thought an ofi^ence to a 
European soldier to send him to fight under a black 
commandant. That black commandant was then a 
great man, in spite of his colour. He rode on horse- 
back at the head of his men, and a mounted stafi*- 



BIRTH OF THE BENGAL ARMY. 205 

officer, a native adjutant, carried his commands to 1756-57. 
the Soubahdars of the respective companies. And a 
brave man or a skilful leader was honoured for his 
bravery or his skill as much under the folds of a 
turban as under a round hat. 

When the great outrage of the Black Hole called The Benjral 
Olive's retributory army to Bengal, the English had ^^^^^' 
no Sepoy troops on the banks of the Hooghly. But 
there were fourteen native battalions in Madras, 
numbering in all ten thousand men, and Clive took 
two of these with him, across the black water, to 
Calcutta. Arrived there, and the first blow struck, 
he began to raise native levies in the neighbourhood, 
and a battalion of Bengal Sepoys fought at Plassey 
side by side with their comrades from Madras. Eight 
years after this victory, which placed the great pro- 
vince of Bengal at our feet, the one battalion had 
swollen into nineteen, each of a thousand strong. To 
each battalion three English officers were appointed 
— picked men from the English regiments.* The 
native element was not so strong as in the Southern 
Army ; but a good deal of substantive authority still 
remained with the black officers. 

And that the Bengal Sepoy was an excellent sol- 
dier, was freely declared by men who had seen the 
best troops of the European powers. Drilled and 
disciplined in all essential points after the English 
model, the native soldier was not called upon to 
divest himself of all the distinctive attributes of his 
race. Nothing that his creed abhorred or his caste 
rejected was forced upon him by his Christian 
masters. He lived apart, cooked apart, ate apart, 
after the fashion of his tribe. No one grudged him 

* In 1765, tlie number was iu- native commandant and ten Soubah- 
creased to five. There were then a dars to each battalion. — Broome. 



206 THE SEPOY ARjyiY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS 

1757. his necklace, liis ear-rings, the caste-marks on his 
forehead, or the beard which lay upon his breast. 
He had no fear of being forcibly converted to the re- 
ligion of the white men, for he could not see that the 
white men had any religion to which they could 
convert him. There was no interference from the 
Adjutant- General's office, no paper government, no 
perpetual reference to order-books bristling with in- 
novations ; and so he was happy and contented, 
obedient to the officers who commanded him, and 
faithful to the Government he served. 

His predominant sentiment, indeed, was fidelity to 
his Salt, or, in other words, to the hand that fed him. 
But if he thouo;ht that the hand was unrio-hteouslv 
closed to withhold from him what he believed his due, 
he showed himself to be most tenacious of his rights, 
and he resolutely asserted them. This temper very 
soon manifested itself. The Bengal Army was but 
seven years old, when it first began to evince some 
symptoms of a mutinous spirit. But in this instance 
the contagion came from the Europeans. The white 
troops had mutinied because the promise of a donation 
to the Army from Meer Jaffier had halted on the Avay 
to performance ; and when the money came, the Sepoys 
followed their example, because they thought that they 
were denied their rightful share of the Prize. They 
had just ground of complaint in this instance, and 
they were soothed by a reasonable concession.* But 
the fire had not burnt itself out ; and before the close 
of the year some regiments were again in rebellion. 
One battalion seized and imprisoned its English officers, 
and vowed that it would serve no more. It was one 
of those childish ebullitions, of which we have since 

* Whilst a private of tlie Euro- six. The share of the latter was 
pean Army was to receive forty ru- afterwards fixed at twenty rupees, 
pees, it was proposed to give a Sepoy 



BLOWN FROM THE GUNS 207 

seeti so many in the Bengal Army. But it was plain 1764, 
that the evil was a growing one, and to be arrested 
with a strong hand. So twenty-four Sepoys were 
tried, at Chuprah, by a drum-head Court-Martial, for 
mutiny and desertion, found guilty, and ordered to be 
blown away from the guns. 

A century has passed since the order was carried 
into execution, and many strange and terrible scenes 
have been witnessed by the Sepoy Army ; but none 
stranger or more terrible than this. The troops 
were drawn up, European and Native, the guns were 
loaded, and the prisoners led forth to suffer. Major 
Hector Munro, the chief of the Bengal Army, super- 
intended that dreadful punishment parade, and gave 
the word of command for the first four of the criminals 
to be tied up to the guns. The order was being 
obeyed ; the men were being bound ; when four tall, 
stately Grenadiers stepped forward from among the 
condemned, and represented that as they had always 
held the post of honour in life, it was due to them that 
they should take precedence in death. The request 
was granted ; a brief reprieve was given to the men 
first led to execution ; the Grenadiers were tied to 
the guns, and blown to pieces at the word of com- 
mand. 

Then all 1 jirough the Sepoy battalions on that ghastly 
parade, there ran a murmur and a movement, and it 
seemed that the black troops, who greatly outnum- 
bered the white, were about to strike for the rescue of 
their comrades. There were signs and sounds not to 
be misunderstood ; so the officers of the native regi- 
ments went to the front and told Munro that their 
men were not to be trusted ; that the Sepoys had re- 
solved not to suffer the execution to proceed. On the 
issue of that reference depended the fate of the Bengal 
Army. The English troops on that parade were few. 



208 THE SEPOY ARMY — ^ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

17C1. There was scarcely a man among them not moved to 
tears by what he had seen ; but Munro knew thai 
they could be trusted, and that they could defend the 
guns, which once turned upon the natives would have 
rendered victory certain. So he closed the Europeans 
on to the battery ; the Grenadiers upon one side, the 
Marines on the other, loaded the pieces with grape, 
and sent the Sepoy officers back to their battalions. 
This done, he gave the word of command to the native 
regiments to ground arms. In the presence of those 
loaded guns, and of the two lines of white troops 
ready to fire upon them, to have disobeyed would 
have been madness. They moved to the word of 
command, laid down their arms, and when another 
word of command was given, which sent the Sepoys 
to a distance from their grounded muskets, and the 
Europeans with the guns took ground on the inter- 
vening space, the danger had passed away. The 
native troops were now completely at Monro's mercy, 
and the execution went on in their presence to its 
dreadful close. Twenty men were blown away from 
the guns at that parade. Four were reserved for 
execution at another station, as a warning to other 
regiments, which appeared to be mutinously disposed, 
and six more, tried and sentenced at Bankepore, were 
blown away at that place. Terrible as was this 
example, it was the act of a merciful and humane 
man, and Mercy and Humanity smiled sorroAvfully, 
but approvingly, upon it. It taught the Sepoy Army 
that no British soldier, black or white, can rebel 
against the State without bringing down upon himself 
fearful retribution, and by the sacrifice of a few 
guilty forfeited lives checked the progress of a disease 
which, if weakly sufi'ered to run its course, migiit; 
have resulted in the slaughter of thousands. 



CLIVE AND THE BENGAL OFFICERS. 209 

The lesson was not tlirown away. The Sepoy learnt 17 tt. 
to respect the stern authority of the Law, and felt 
that the Nemesis of this new Government of the 
British was certain in its operations, and not to be 
escaped. And the time soon came when his con- 
stancy was tested, and found to have the ring of 
the true metal. The European officers broke into 
rebellion; but the natives did not falter in their Mutiny of il.i 
allegiance. Conceiving themselves aggrieved by the omms. 
withdrawal of the extraordinary allowances which 
they had enjoyed in the field, the former determined 
to remonstrate against the reduction, and to clamour 
for what they called their rights. In each brigade 
meetings were called, consultations were held, and 
secret committees were formed, under the disguise of 
Freemasons' Lodges. Headstrong and obstinate, the 
officers swore to recover the double batta which had 
been taken from them, or to resign the service in a 
body. Large sums of money were subscribed, and 
the Company's civilians contributed to the fund, which 
was to enable their military brethren to resist the 
authority of their common masters. It was a for- 
midable conjuncture, and one to try the courage 
even of a Clive. The orders of the Company were 
peremptory ; and he was not a man to lower the au- 
thority of Government by yielding to a threat. But 
he could not disguise from himself that there were 
contingencies which might compel him to make a 
temporary concession to the insubordinates ; one was 
an incursion of the Mahrattas,* the other the defection 
of the Sepoys. Had the native soldic^rs sympathised 
with and supported the English officers, the impetus 

* "In case the Mahrattas should case, you liave authority to make 

stiU appear to intend an invasion, terms with the officers of your bri- 

or in case you apprehend a mutiny gade." — Lord Clive io Col. Smith, May 

among the troops, but in no other 11, 1766. [See also following uote.l 

V 



210 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

1766. thus given to the movement would have overborne 
all power of resistance, and Government must have 
succumbed to the crisis. In this emergency, Clivc 
saw clearly the importance of securing " the fidelity 
and attachment of the Soubahdars, or commanding 
officers of the black troops," and he wrote urgently 
to his lieutenants. Smith and Fletcher, instructing 
them to attain this end. But the Sepoys had never 
wavered. True to their colours, they were ready at 
the word of command to fire on the white mutineers. 
Assured of this, Clive felt that the danger was over — 
felt that he could hold out against the mutiny of the 
English officers, even though the European troops 
should break into revolt.* 

The founders of the Native Army had conceived 
the idea of a force recruited from among the people 
of the country, and commanded for the most part by 
men of their o^vn race, but of higher social position 
— men, in a word, of the master-class, accustomed to 
exact obedience from their inferiors. But it was the 
inevitable tendency of our increasing power in India 
to oust the native functionary from his seat, or to lift 
him from his saddle, that the white man might fix him- 
self there, with all the remarkable tenacity of his race. 
An Eno;lishman believes that he can do all thino;s 
better than his neighbours, and, therefore, it was doubt- 

* "The black Sepoy officers, as European battalion had got under 

well as men, have given great proofs arms, and were preparing to leave 

of fidelity and steadiness upon this the fort and follow their officers, and 

occasion, and so long as they remain the artillery were about to do the 

so, nothing is to be apprehended same, but the unexpected appear- 

from the European soldiery, even if ance of tliis firm line of Sepoys, witli 

they should be mutinously inclined." tlieir bayonets fixed and arms loaded, 

— Clive to Smith, 3fayl5, 1700, 3fS. threw them into some confusion, of 

Records. — Ttiey iiad just afforded a which Captain Smith took advan- 

striking proof that they were pre- tage, and warned them, that if they 

pared, if necessary, to fire upon the did not retire peaceably into their 

Europeans. See Broome's History of barracks, he would tire iipou theai 

the Bengal Army, vol. i. 589: "The al once." 



. DEGRADATION OF THE NATIVE OFFICER. 211 

less with a sincere conviction of the good we were doing 17S4. 
that we gradually took into our own hands the reins of 1/ 
office, civil and military, and left only the drudgery 
and the dirty work to be done by the people of the 
soil. Whether, if we had fairly debated the ques- 
tion, it Avould have appeared to us a safer and a Aviser 
course to leave real military power in the hands of 
men who might turn it against us, than to cast upon 
the country a dangerous class of malcontents identi- 
fying the rise of the British power with their own 
degradation, it may now be difficult to determine.' 
But any other result than that before us would have 
been utterly at variance with the genius of the 
English nation, and, theorise as we might, was not to 
be expected. So it happened, in due course, that 
the native officers, who had exercised real authority 
in their battalions, who had enjoyed opportunities of 
personal distinction, who had felt an honourable 
pride in their position, were pushed aside by an in- 
cursion of English gentlemen, who took all the sub- 
stantive power into their hands, and left scarcely 
more than the shadow of rank to the men whom 
they had supplanted. An English subaltern was Increase of 
appointed to every company, and the native officer oSfceis. 
then began to collapse into something little better 
than a name. 

As the degradation of the native officer was thus 
accomplished, the whole character of the Sepoy army 
-svas changed. It ceased to be a profession in which, 
men of high position, accustomed to command, ' ^ 
might satisfy the aspirations and expend the ener- 
gies of their lives. All distinctions were effaced. 
The native service of the Company came down to a 
dead level of common soldierino^, and risins: from the 
ranks by a painfully slow process to merely nominal 

p2 



21.2 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

1781-9G. command. There was employment for tlie many ; 
there was no longer a career for the few. Thence- 
forth, therefore, we dug out the materials of our 
army from the lower strata of society, and the gentry 
of the land, seeking military service, carried their 
jambitions beyond the red line of the British frontier, 
and offered their swords to the Princes of the Native 
States. 

But in those lower strata there were elementary 
diversities of which in England we know nothing. 
The lower orders amongst us are simply the lower 
orders — all standino- too;ether on a common level 
of social equality ; we recognise no distinctions 
among them except in respect of the callings which 
they follow. Thus one common soldier differs only 
from another common soldier in the height of his 
stature, or the breadth of his shoulders, or the steadi- 
ness of his drill. But in India the great institution 

Caste. of Caste — at once the most exclusive and the most 
levelling system in the world — may clothe the filthiest, 
feeblest mendicant with all the dignities and powers 
of the proudest lord. So, in our native armj^, a 
i Sepoy was not merely a Sepoy. He might be a Brah- 
min, or he might be a Pariah ; and though they 
might stand beside each other shoulder to shoulder, 
foot to foot, on the parade-ground, there was as Avide 
a gulf between them in the Lines, as in our own 
country yawns between a dustman and a duke. 
I In the Bengal Army the Sepoys were chiefly of 
I high Caste. Deriving its name from the country in 
which it was first raised, not from the people com- 
posing it, it was recruited in the first instance from 
among the floating population Avhich the Mahomedan 
conquest had brought from the northern provinces — 
from Rohilcund, from Oud(^ from the country be- 



CASTE IN THE ARMY. 216 

tween the two rivers ; men of migratory habits, and 178l-9a 
martial instincts, and sturdy frames, differing in ail 
respects, mind and body, from the timid, feeble deni- 
zens of Bengal. The Jat, the Rajpoot, and thel 
priestly Brahmin, took service, with the Patan, under I 
the great white chief, who had humbled the pride of i 
Soorajah Dowlah. And as time advanced, and the 
little local militia swelled into the bulk of a magnifi- 
cent army, the aristocratic element was still dominant 
in the Bengal Army. But the native troops off/ 
Madras and Bombay were made up from more mixed / 
and less dainty materials. There were men in the 
ranks of those armies of all nations and of all castes, 
and the more exclusive soon ceased from their exclu- 
siveness, doins; thino;s which their brethren in the 
Bengal Army shrunk from doings and solacing their 
pride with the reflection that it was the " custom of 
the country." Each system had its advocates. The 
Bengal Sepoy, to the outward eye, w^as the finest 
soldier; tallest, best-formed, and of the noblest pre- 
sence. But he Avas less docile and serviceable than , 
the Sepoy of the Southern and the Western Armies. | "^ 
In the right mood there was no better soldier in the 
world, but he was not always in the right mood ; and 
the humours which he displayed were ever a source 
of trouble to his commanders, and sometimes of dan- 
ger to the State. 

In an army so constituted, the transfer of all sub- The Sepo^ 
stantive authority to a handful of alien officers ^®^^^* 
might have been followed by a fatal collapse of the 
whole system, but for one fortunate circumstance, 
which sustained its vitality. The officers appointed 
to command the Sepoy battalions were picked men ; 
men chosen from the European regiments, not merely 
as good soldiers, skilled in their professional duties. 



214 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

lYSJ-se. but as gentlemen of sound judgment and good 
temper, acquainted with the languages and the 
habits of the people of the country, and prone to 
respect the prejudices of the soldiery. The command 
of a native battalion was one of the highest objects 
of ambition. It conferred large powers and often 
great wealth upon the Sepoy officer ; and though 
the system was one pregnant with abuses, which 
we see clearly in these days, it contained that 
great principle of cohesion which attached the Eng- 
lish officer and the native soldier to each other — 
cohesion, which the refinements of a later civilisation 
were doomed rapidly to dissolve. 

1700. It lasted out the century, but scarcely survived it.* 

The English Sepoy- officer having become a great 
substantive fact, not a mere excrescence upon the 
general body of the English Army, it became ne- 
cessary to define his position. He had many great 
advantages, but he had not rank; and the Com- 
pany's officer found himself continually superseded by 
younger men in the King's army. Very reasonably, 
if not always very temperately, he began then to 
assert his rights ; and the result was an entire reor- 

* That the national basis, which command of this party," says the 
had originally distinguished the biographer, " went Ensign John 
foundation of the Madras Army, did Malcolm. This was his first service ; 
not very long survive the establish- and it was long remembered by 
ment of the reformed system of Ben- others than the youthful hero liim- 
gal, and that the native officers soon self. Wlien the detachment met the 
lost the power and the dignity in prisoners' escort, a bright-faced, 
which they had once rejoiced, may healthy English boy was seen by the 
be gathered from an early incident in latter riding up to them on a rough 
the Life of Sir John Malcolm. It pony. Dallas asked him after his 
was in 1784, when an exchange of commanding officer. */am the corn- 
prisoners with Tippoo had been ne- mandiug officer,' said young Mal- 
gotiated, that a detachment of two colm." As Malcolm was born in 
companies of Sepoys was sent out 1709, he must at this time have been 
from our side of the Mysore frontier a boy of fifteen; yet he commanded 
to meet the escort under Major a detachment of two companies of 
Dallas conveying the English pri- Sepoys, and all the eld native officers 
soners from Seringapatam. '* In attached to them. 



THE EEORGANISATION OF 1796. 215 

ganisation of the Company's army, which greatly im- 1796 
proved the status of its old officers and opened a door 
for the employment of a large number of others. By the 
regulations then framed, two battalions of Sepoys were 
formed into one regiment, to which the same number 
of officers were posted as to a regiment in the King's 
army, and all took rank according to the date of 
their commissions. It was believed that the increased 
number of European officers would add to the effi- 
ciency of the Native Army. But it was admitted, 
even by those who had been most active in working 
out the new scheme, that it did not develop all the 
good results with which it was believed to be laden. 
The little authority, the little dignity, which still 
clung to the position of the native officers was then 
altogether effaced by this new incursion of English 
gentlemen ;* and the discontent, which had been 
groAving up in the minds of the soldiery, began then 
to bear bitter fruit. 

But this was not all. The new regulations, which 
so greatly improved the position of the Company's 
officers, and in no respect more than in that of the 
pensions which they were then permitted to enjoy, 
held out great inducements to the older officers of the 
Company's army to retire from active service, and to 
spend the remainder of their days at home. ]\Iany of 
the old commandants then prepared to leave the bat- 
talions over which they had so long exercised paternal 
authority, and to give up their places to stran- 
gers. Not only was there a change of men, but a 
change also of system. The English officer rose by 
seniority to command. The principle of selection 

* It was alleged to be an advan- would obviate the necessity of ever 
lage of the new system that the m- sending out a detachment under 
creased number of English officers native command. 



216 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

1796 was abandoned. And men, who could scarcely call 
for a glass of water in the language of the countiy, or 
define the difference between a Hindoo and a Ma- 
homedan, found themselves invested with responsi- 
bilities which ought to have devolved only on men of 
large local experience and approved good judgment 
and temper. 
riie Mysore But the evil results of the change were not imme- 
\l^ars!'''"''^^^ diately apparent. The last years of the eighteenth, and 
the first years of the nineteenth century were years of 
active Indian warfare. In the Mysore and in the Mah- 
ratta countries the Sepoy had constant work, under 
irreat <renerals whom he honoured and trusted : he 
had strong faith in the destiny of the Company ; and 
his pride was flattered by a succession of brilliant 
victories. But it is after such wars as those of Harris, 
Lake, and Wellesley, when a season of stagnation 
succeeds a protracted period of excitement, that the 
discipline of an army, whether in the East or in the 
West, is subjected to its severest trials. All the 
physical and moral properties which have so long 
sustained it in high health and perfect efficiency then 
seem to collapse; and the soldier, nerveless and 
languid, readily succumbs to the deteriorating in- 
fluences by which he is surrounded. And so it 
w^as with the Sepoy after those exhausting wars. He 
was in the state which, of all others, is most suscep- 
tible of deleterious impressions. And, unhappily, 
there was one especial source of annoyance and alarm 
to irritate and disquiet him in the hour of peace. 
Amidst the stern realities of active warfare, the Euro- 
pean officer abjures the pedantries of the drill-sergeant 
and the fopperies of the regimental tailor. He has no 
time for small things ; no heart for trifles. It is 
enough for him that his men are in a condition to 



DRESS AND DRILL. 217 

fight battles and to win them. But in Peace he 1805. 
sometimes shrivels into an Arbiter of Drill and Dress, 
and worries in time the best of soldiers into malcon- 
tents and mutineers. 

And so it was that, after the fierce excitement of 
the Mysore and Mahratta wars, there arose among our 
English officers an ardour for military improvement ; 
and the Sepoy, who had endured for years, without a 
murmur, all kinds of hardships and privations, under 
canvas and on the line of march, felt that life was less 
endurable in cantonments than it had been in the 
field, and was continually disturbing himself, in his 
matted hut, about the new things that were being 
forced upon him. All sorts of novelties were bristling 
up in his path. He was to be drilled after a new 
English fashion. He was to be dressed after a 
new English fashion. He was to be shaved after . 
a new English fashion. He was not smart enough 
for the Martinets who had taken him in hand to 
polish him up into an English soldier. They were 
stripping him, indeed, of his distinctive Oriental cha- 
racter ; and it was not long before he began to see in 
these efibrts to Anglicise him something more than ' 
the vexatious innovations and crude experiments of 
European military reform. 



To these annoyances and vexations the Madras Mutiny of 
Army were especially subjected. Composed as were its ^^^^/^^ 
battalions of men of different castes, and not in any 
way governed by caste principles, they were held to be 
peculiarly accessible to innovation; and, little by 
little, all the old outward characteristics of the native 
soldier were effaced, and new things, upon the most 
approved European pattern, substituted in their place. 



218 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

1805-G. At last the Sepoy, forbidden to wear the distinguish- 
' ing marks of Caste on his forehead, stripped of his 

- i ear-rings, to which, by ties ahke of vanity and super- 
stition, he was fondly attached,* and ordered to shave 
himself according to a regulation cut,f was put into 
a stiif round hat, like a Pariah drummer's, with a flat 
top, a leather cockade, and a standing feather. It was 
no longer called a " turband ;" it was a hat or cap ; in 
the language of the natives, a topi ; and a to^i-wallah^ 
or hat-wearer, was in their phraseology a synonym 
for a Feringhee or Christian. 

The Sepoy is not logical, but he is credulous and 
' suspicious. It was not difficult to persuade him that 
there were hidden meanino;s and occult desio^ns in all 
this assimilation of the native soldier's dress to that of 
the European fighting-man. The new hat was not 
merely an emblem of Christianity, and therefore 
possessed of a grave moral significance, but materially, 
also, it was discovered to be an abomination. It Avas 
^ made in part of leather prepared from the skin of the 

^ ! unclean hog, or of the sacred cow, and was, therefore, 
an ofience and a desecration alike to Mahomedan and 
Hindoo. The former had no distinguishing marks of 
caste to be rubbed ofi* on parade with a dirty stick, but 
he venerated his beard and his ear-rings, and, under 
the force of contact and example, he had developed 
many strong generic resemblances to the caste- 
observing Hindoo. The Mahomedan of India differs 

* By the Mahomedan Sepoy the wear ear-rings when dressed in his 

ear-ring was often worn as a charm, uniform; and it is further directed. 

It was given to him at his birth, and tliat at all parades, and on all duties, 

dedicated to some patron saint. every soldier of the battalion shall 

f See the following, Para. 10, be clean-shaved on the chin. It is 

Sec. 11, Standing Orders of Madras directed, also, that uniformity shall, 

Army : " It is ordered by the Eegu- as far as is practicable, be preserved 

lalions that a native soldier shall not in regard to the quantity and shape 

mark iiis face to denote iiis caste, or of the hair on the upper lip." 



THE HINDOOISED MAHOMEDAN. 219 

greatly in liis habits and his feelings from the Ma- 1306. 
homedan of Central Asia or Arabia; he accommo- 
dates himselfj in some sort, to the usages of the 
country, and being thus readily acclimatised, he 
strikes strong root in the soil. Christianity does not 
differ more than Mahomedanism, doctrinally or ethi- 
cally, from the religion of the Hindoos; but in 
the one case there may be social fusion, in the 
other it is impossible. Even in the former instance, 
the fusion is imperfect, and there is in this partial 
assimilation of races one of the chief elements of our 
security in India. But the security derived from this 
source is also imperfect ; and circumstances may at 
any time, by an unfortunate coincidence, appeal to 
the ethnical resemblances and the common instincts 
of different nationalities, in such a manner as to excite 
in both the same fears and to raise the same aspira- 
tions, and so to cause all diversities to be for a time 
forgotten. And such a coincidence appears now to 
have arisen. Different races, moved by the sense of 
a common danger, and roused by a common hope, 
forgot their differences, and combined against a 
common foe. 

And so it happened that in the spring of 1806, the 
Hindoo and Mahomedan Sepoy in the Southern 
Peninsula of India were talking together, like caste- 
brothers, about their grievances, and weaving plots 
for their deliverance. It is partly by accident, partly 
by design, that such plots ripen in the spring. By 
accident, because relieved from cold- weather exercises, 
parades, field-days, and inspections, the soldier has 
more leisure to ruminate his wrongs, and more time 
to discuss them. By design, because the coming heats 
and rains paralyse the activities of the white man, and 
are great gain to the native mutineer. In April and 



220 THE SEPOr ARMY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

JS06, May the English officer sees little of his men; his 
visits to the Lines are few ; few are his appearance on 
parade. He is languid and prostrate. The morning 
and evening ride are as much as his energies can 
compass. The Sepoy then, disencumbered of dress 
and dismissed from drill, can afford to snatch some 
hours from sleep to listen to any strange stories, told 
by wandering mendicants, with the odour of sanctified 
filth about them, and to discuss the most incredible 
fables with all the gravity of settled belief There is 
always more or less of this vain talk. It amuses the 
Sepoy and for a while excites him with a visionary 
prospect of higher rank and better pay, under some 
new dispensation. But he is commonly content to 
regard this promised time as a far-oif Hegira, and, as 
he turns himself round on his charpoy for another 
nap, he philosophically resolves in the mean while to 
eat the Company's salt in peace, and to wait God's 
pleasure in quietude and patience. 

But there was at this time something more to excite 
the imagination of the Sepoy in Southern India than 
the ordinary vain talk of the Bazaars and the Lines. 
The travelling fakeers were more busy with their in- 
ventions ; the rumours which they carried from place 
to place were more ominous ; the prophecies which 
,they recited were more significant of speedy fulfilment. 
There was more point in the grotesque performances 
of the puppet-shows — more meaning in the rude 
ballads which were sung and the scraps of verse 
which were cited. Strange writings were dropped by 
unseen hands, and strange placards posted on the 
walls. At all the large military stations in the 
Carnatic and in the Deccan there was an uneasy feel- 
ing as of something coming. There were manifold 
si^-iis which seemed to indicate that the time to strike 



GRIEVANCES OF THE SEPOYS. 221 

had arrived, and so the Sepoy began to take stock of 1806. 
his grievances and to set before him all the benefits of 
change. 

The complaints of the Sepoy were many. If he 
were to pass his whole life in the Company's service -J 
and do what he might, he could not rise higher than 
the rank of Soubahdar ; there had been times when 
distinguished native soldiers had been appointed to 
high and lucrative commands, and had faithfully done 
their duty ; but those times had passed, and, instead of 
being exalted, native officers were habitually degraded. 
A Sepoy on duty always presented or carried arms to 
an English officer, but an English soldier suffered a 
native officer to pass by without a salute. Even an 
English Sergeant commanded native officers of the 
highest rank. On parade, the English officers made 
mistakes, used the wrong words of command, then 
threw the blame upon the Sepoys and reviled them. 
Even native officers, who had grown grey in the 
service, were publicly abused by European striplings. 
On the line of march the native officers were com- 
pelled to live in the same tents with the common 
Sepoys, and had not, as in the armies of native 
potentates, elephants or palanquins assigned to them 
for their conveyance, how great soever the distance 
which they were obliged to traverse. And if they rode 
horses or ponies, purchased from their savings, the 
English officer fro^vned at them as upstarts. ^'The 
Sepoys of the Nizam and the Mahratta chiefs," they 
said, " are better off than our Soubahdars and 
Jemidars." Then it was urged that the Company's 
officers took the Sepoys vast distances from their 
homes, where they died in strange places, and that 
their wives and children were left to beg their bread ; 
that native Princes, when they conquered new 



222. THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

1.8C6 countries, gave grants of lands to distinguished 
soldiers, but that the Company only gave them sweet 
words ; that the concubines of the English gentlemen 
were better paid than the native officers, and their 
grooms and grass-cutters better than the native 
soldiers ; that the English officers could import into 
their Zenanas the most beautiful women in the 
country, whilst the natives hardly dared look at the 
slave-girls; and, to crown all, it was declared that 
/ / General Arthur Wellesley had ordered his wounded 
Sepoys to be mercilessly shot to death. 

Preposterous as v^cre some of the fables with which 
this bill of indictment was crusted over, there was 
doubtless beneath it a large substratum of truth. 
But the alleged grievances were, for the most part, 
chronic ailments which the Sepoy had been long 
enduring, and miglit have endured still longer, pa- 
tiently and silently, had they not culminated in 
the great outrage of the round hat, with its auxiliary 
vexations of the shorn beard, the effaced caste-marks, 
and the despoiled ear-rings. Then, it was not diffi- 
cult to teach him that this aggregation of wrongs 
had become intolerable, and that the time had 
come for him to strike a blow in defence of his 
rio'hts. And the teacher was not far distant. The 
great Mahomedan usurpation of Mysore had been 
overthrown, but the representatives of the usurper 
were still in the country. The family of the slain 
Sultan were living in the fort of Vellore, as the 
clients rather than the captives of the English, with 
abundant wealth at their command, and a numerous 
body of Mussulman attendants. But generous as 
was the treatment they had received, and utterly at 
variance with their own manner of dealing Avith 
fallen enemies, they had not ceased to bewail the 



THE MYSORE PRINCES. 223 

loss of the sovereign power whicli had passed from 1S0(5, 
their House, or to hate the conquerors who had 
unkinged them. In the luxurious idleness of Vel- 
lore they dreamed of the recovery of their lost 
empire. There was but one way to the attainment 
of that cherished object, and that way was through 
the corruption of the Sepoy. The time was pro- 
pitious, and the work commenced. 

It ought not to have been easy work, but so it 
was. If there had been relations of confidence be- 
tween the English officer and the native soldier, the 
corruption of the latter would have been a task of 
sore difficulty and danger ; but those relations were 
not what they had been a few years before. It was 
not that the officers themselves had deteriorated, but 
that a new system had been introduced, which, greatly 
improving their state and prospects, and, it may be 
said, permanently increasing their efficiency as a 
body, still caused some temporary relaxation of the 
ties which bound them to the soldiery of the country. 
The new regulations of 1796, it has been said, opened 
out to the elder generation of officers a door by which 
they might retire on advantageous terms from the 
service. Some took their pensions at once ; but a 
period of active warfare supervened, and many 
veteran officers waited for the restoration of peace 
to take advantage of the boon that was offisred. 
They went ; and a new race of men, young and inex- 
perienced, took their places. And so, for a time, the 
Sepoy did not know his officer, nor the officer his 
men ; they met almost as strangers on parade, and 
there was little or no communion between them. It 
was a transition-period of most untoward occurrence, 
when so many other adverse influences were destroy- 
ing the discipline of the army ; and, therefore, again 



224 THE SEPOY ARI^IY— ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

1805. I saj tlie hour was propitious, and the work of cor- 
ruption commenced. 
May 7, At the end of the first week of May, as Adjut;ant- 

tiieliuiiny. General Agnew was rising from his work, in the 
white heat of Fort St. George, there came tidings to 
his office of general disaffection among the native 
troops at Vellore. One battalion, at least, already had 
broken into open mutiny. The chief of the Madras 
army, Sir John Cradock, had retired for the even- 
ing to his garden-house in the pleasant suburbs of 
Madras, so Agnew drove out to see him with the im- 
portant missive in his hand. A few days afterwards, 
Cradock was posting to Vellore. Arrived there, he 
found that there had been no exaggeration in the 
reports which had been furnished to him, but that 
more judicious treatment at the outset might have 
allayed the excitement among the troops, and re- 
stored the confidence of the Sepoy. So said a Court 
of Inquiry ; so said the Commander-in-Chief. A 
gentle sudorific, almost insensibly expelling the pent- 
up humours, may suffice at the beginning, though 
only much blood-letting can cure at the end. But 
ailments of this kind, in the military body, seldom 
reveal themselves in their full significance until the 
time for gentle treatment is past. When Cradock 
went to Vellore no mere explanations could repair 
the mischief that had been done. The mutinous 
troops were sent down to the Presidency, and others 
substituted for them. Military discipline was vindi- 
cated for the time by a court-martial, and two of the 
ringleaders were sentenced to be — flogged. But the 
infection still clung to Vellore. The whole native 
garrison was tainted and corrupted. 

Nor was it a mere local epidemic. At other military 
stations in the Carnatic there was similar excitement. 



IXCAUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 225 



Midnislil' nieetiTio:s were Leino; held in the Lines: ^^^ 
oaths of secresy were being administered to the 
Sepoys ; threats of the most terrible vengeance were 
fulminated against any one daring to betray them. 
The native officers took the lead, the men followed, 
some roused to feelings of resentment, others huddling 
together like sheep, under the influence of a vague 
fear. In the bungalows of the English captains there 
was but small knowledge of what was passing in the 
Sepoys' Lines, and if there had been more, discretion 
would probably have whispered that in such a case 
" silence is gold." For when in the high places of 
Government there is a general disinclination to believe 
in the existence of danger, it is scarcely safe for men 
of lowlier station to say or to do anything indicating 
suspicion and alarm. 

At Vellore, after the first immature demonstration, 
there was a lull ; and the quietude had just the effect 
that it was intended to have ; it disarmed the sus- 
picion and suspended the vigilance of the English. 
The most obvious precautions were neglected. Even 
the significant fact that the first open manifestation 
of disaffection had appeared under the shadow of the 
asylum of the Mysore Princes, had not suggested any 
special associations, or indicated the direction in which 
the watchful eye of the British Government should 
be turned. Nothing was done to strengthen the Eu- 
ropean garrison of Yellore.* No pains were taken 
to cut off the perilous intercourse which existed be- 

* " That neither the Government Princes. No precautions seem to 

nor the Commander-in-Chief enter- have been taken within the Eort, and 

tained any serious apprehensions notwitlistanding the discontent ma- 

from the agitation having first oc- nifested by the native troops, the 

curred at Vellore, is obvious. Tlie garrison was still left with only four 

battalion that most opposed the in- companies of Europeans." — Barr^ 

nj^Ation was, indeed, ordered to Close to John Malcolm. Poonah, 

Madras, but nothing was directed Aug. 12, 1806. MS. Correspondeme^ 
indicative cf any jealousy of the 



226 THE SErOY APv^IY — ITS RISE AND PROGRE'SS. 

1806. tween the native soldiery and the occupants of the 
Palace. So the latter went about the Fort jeering 
the Sepoys, and telling them that they would soon 
be made Christians to a man. The different parts 
of their uniform were curiously examined, amidst 
shrugs and other expressive gestures, and significant 
^'Wah-wahs!" and vague hints that everything 
about them in some way portended Christianity. 
They looked at the Sepoy's stock, and said, "^'What 
is this? It is leather! Well!" Then they would 
look at his belt, and tell him that it made a cross 
on his breast, and at the little implements of his 
calling, the turnscrew and worm, suspended from it, 
and say that they also were designed to fi:K the Chris- 
tian's cross upon his person. But it was the round 
hat that most of all was the object of the taunts and 
warnings of the people from the Palace. " It only 
needed this," they said, " to make you altogether a 
Feringhee. Take care, or we shall soon all be made 
Christians — Bazaar-people, Ryots, every one will be 
compelled to wear the hat ; and then the whole 
country will be ruined." Within the Fort, and out- 
side the Fort, men of all kinds were talking about the 
forcible conversion to Christianity which threatened 
them ; and everywhere the round hat was spoken of 
as the instrument by which the Caste of the Hindoo 
was to be destroyed, and the faith of the Mussulman 
desecrated and demolished. 

But all this was little known to the officers of the 
Vellore garrison, or, if known, was little heeded. So 
unwilling, indeed, were they to believe that any 
danger was brewing, that a Sepoy who told his 
English officer that the regiments were on the eve of 
revolt was put in irons as a madman. The native 
officers declared that he deserved condign punish- 



OUTBREAK OF MUTINY. 227 

merit for blackening the faces of his corps, and they IS05. 
were readily believed. But the time soon came 
when the prophecy of evil was verified, and the pro- 
phet was exalted and rewarded. Deeply implicated as 
he was said to be in the plot — a traitor first to the 
English, and then to his own people — his name be- 
came an offence and an abomination to the Army, 
and the favour shown to him a source of the bitterest 
resentment. "The disposition of the gentlemen of 
the Company's service," they said, " and the nature 
of their government, make a thief happy, and an 
honest man afflicted."* 

On the 10th of July the mine suddenly exploded. jY°^^'tc;o- 
It was remembered afterwards that on the preceding 
afternoon an unusual number of people had passed 
into the Fort, some mounted and some on foot, 
seemingly on no especial business ; all with an inso- 
lent, braggart air, laughing and rollicking, making 
mimic battle among themselves, and otherwise ex- 
pressing a general expectancy of something coming. 
It was remembered, too, that on that evening there 
had been more than the common tendency of the 
times to speak abusively of the English. The Adjutant 
of a Sepoy regiment had been called, to his face, 
by the vilest term of reproach contained in the lan- 
guage of the country.! But it has been doubted 
whether the day and hour of the outburst were those 
fixed for the development of the plot. The con- 

* From a paper in Tliiidostanee, dar. Tlie same ]\Iustapha Be^^, Sepoy, 

transmitted to Adjutant-General Ag- was the man who gave the signal for 

new from the Hyderabad Subsidiary revolt to the people at Vellore, and 

Force : " In the affair at Vellore/' this is the man whom the Company 

said the Sepoys, " when the mutiny have distinguished by their favour." 
first commenced, it was on account f Unhappily it is one of the first 

of Mustapha Beg ; and the gentle- words which the Englishman in 

men of the Company's Government India learns to speak, and by which 

liave bestowed upon him a revvard of many young officers, when displeased, 

two thousand pagodas from the pub- habitually call their native servants, 
lie treasury, with the rank of Soubali- 

q2 



228 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

1S06. spirators, it is said, were not ripe for action. Two or 
three days later, the first blow was to have been 
struck, but that a Jemadar, inflamed with strong 
drink, could not control the passionate haste within 
him, and he precipitated the collision which it was the 
policy of his party to defer.* Numbers thus suddenly 
roused to action were unprepared to play their parts ; 
and letters which had been written to disaffected 
polygars and others in Mysore had not yet been de- 
spatched. It was confidently believed that in a few 
days ten thousand faithful adherents of the House of 
Hyder would rally round the standard of the Mussul- 
man Princes. All that was required of the Sepoys 
was, that they should hold Vellore for a week. At 
the end of that time it Avas believed that the whole 
country would be in the hands of the insurgents. 
The European garrison of Vellore, at this time, 
His Majesty's consisted only of four companies of a Line regiment. 
^^ • To fall suddenly, in the dead of the night, on all who 

might hapjoen to be on guard, to overpower them by 
numbers, and then to murder the rest in their beds, 
was apparently an easy task. Two hours after mid- 
night the work commenced. The sentries were shot 
down. The soldiers on main guard were killed as 
they lay on their cots, and the white men in the 

* In the private correspondence ing the native guard fell sick, that 

of the time, it is stated that the day the Soubaiidar was also indisposed, 

fixed for the outbreak was the 14tli. and that Jemadar Cossim Khan, one 

It appeared, however, in the evi- of the most active of tlie mutineer?., 

dence of the first Committee of In- was eager to go the grand rounds ; 

quiry assembled at Vellore, that it and it is possible that this accident 

was agreed that the first blow should helped to precipitate the crisis. On 

be struck fifteen days after the the other hand, it is to be observed 

Mysore standard, prepared in the that Major Armstrong, who had been 

Palace, was ready to be hoisted, and absent from Vellore, and who re- 

that thirteen days had then passed, turned on the night of the 10th, was 

The story of the drunken Jemadar warned by people outside the Fort 

appears in Madras Secret Letter, not to enter, as something was about 

Sept. 30, 1S06. It happened, too, to happen, 
tiiat the European ofiicer command- 



THE MASSACRE OF VELLOUE. 229 

hospital AYeie ruthlessly butch erexl. There was then 1SC6. 
a scene of unexampled confusion. Roused from their 
beds by the unaccustomed sound of firing in tlie Fort, 
the English officers went out to learn the cause of the 
commotion, and many of them were shot down by the 
mutineers in the first bewilderment of surprise. The 
two senior officers of the garrison were among the 
first who fell. On the threshold of his house, Fan- 
court, who commanded the garrison, was warned, for 
dear life's sake, not to come out, but answering with 
the Englishman's favourite formula of '^ Never mind," 
he made for the Main Guard, and was shot with the 
^' Fall in !" on his lips. Of the survivors two or 
three made their Avay to the barracks, and took com- 
mand of such of the Europeans as had escaped the 
first murderous onslaught of the Sepoys. But it was 
little that the most desperate resolution could do in 
this extremity to stem the continually increasing tide 
of furious hostility which threatened to overwhelm 
them. It was no mere military revolt. The inmates 
of the Palace were fraternising with the Sepoys. From 
the apartments of the Princes went forth food to re- 
fresh the weary bodies of the insurgents, and vast 
promises to stimulate and sustain the energies of their 
minds. One of the Princes, the third son of Tippoo, I*i'i"ce llolh^ 
personally encouraged the leaders of the revolt. With 
his own hands he erave them the sio-nificant bhetal-nut. 
With his own lips he proclaimed the rewards to be 
lavished upon the restorers of the Mahomedan dynasty. 
And from his apartments a confidential servant was 
seen to bring the tiger-striped standard of Mysore, 
which, amidst vociferous cries of " Dheen I Dheen !" 
was hoisted above the walls of the Palace. But the 
family of the Sultan were soon forgotten. There was 
no combination to aid their escape. The Sepoys at 



230 



THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 



iSOG. iirst gave themselves up to the work of massacre. The 
people from the Palace, following in their wake, 
gorged themselves with the plunder of the white men, 
and aided the mutineers without sharing their danger. 
After a time the Sepoys betook themselves also to 
plunder ; and the common object was forgotten under 
the excitement of personal greed. The white women 
in the Fort were spared. The tender mercies of the 
wicked, with a refined cruelty, preserved them for a 
worse fate than death. The people from the Palace 
told the Sepoys not to kill them, as all the English 
would be destroyed, and the Moormen might then 
take them for wives.* 

But whilst these terrible scenes were being en- 
acted, and the sons of Tippoo were swelling with 
the proud certainty of seeing the rule of the Sultan 
again established in Mysore, retribution swift and 
M ]or Coals, certain was overtaking the enterprise. An officer of 
the English regiment, who happened to be on duty 
outside the Fort, heard the firing, thoroughly appre- 
hended the crisis, and, through the darkness of the 
early morning, made his way to Arcot, to carry 
thither the tidings of insurrection, and to summon 
succours to the aid of the imperilled garrison. There 
was a reo;iment of British Drao:oons at Arcot, under 
the command of Colonel Gillespie. By seven o'clock 
Coats had told his story. Fifteen minutes afterwards, 
Gillespie, with a squadron of his regiment, was on his 
way to Yellore. The rest were saddling and mount- 
ing; the galloper-guns w^ere being horsed and lim- 
bered ; and a squadron of Native Cavalry was re- 
sponding to the trumpet-call with as much alacrity 



The lOtli 
Dia":oons. 



* The massacre included fourteen ral officers and men grounded, some 
officers and ninety - nine soldiers of the latter mortally, 
killed. There were, moreover, seve- 



SUCCOURS FROM ARCOT. 231 

as the Britisli Dragoons. The saving virtues of 18C0. 
promptitude and preparation were never more con- 
spicuously manifested. A little vacillation, a little 
blundering, a little delay, the result of nothing being 
ready when wanted, and all might have been lost. 
Never had the sage precept of Hyder Ali, that the 
English should keep their white soldiers like hunting- 
leopards in cages, and slip them suddenly and fiercely 
at the enemy, been wrought into practice with more 
terrible effect, than now against the followers and 
supporters of his descendants. 

Once under the walls of Vellore, Gillespie was 
eager to make his way into the Fort, that he might 
rally the remnant of the European garrison and 
secure the safe admission of his men. The outer 
gates were open, but the last was closed, and in pos- 
session of the enemy. There was no hope of forcing 
it without the aid of the guns. But these were now 
rapidly approaching. There were good officers with 
the relieving force, to whom the conduct of external 
operations might be safely entrusted; and Gillespie 
longed to find him.self with the people whom he had 
come to save. So, whilst preparations were being 
made for the attack, he determined to ascend alone 
the walls of the Fort. In default of ladders, the men 
of the 69th let down a rope, and, amidst the shouts 
of the delighted Europeans, he was drawn up, un- 
hurt, to the crest of the ramparts, and took command 
of the survivors of the unhappy force. Quickly 
forming at the word of command, they came down 
eagerly to the charge, and, cheered by the welcome 
sound of the guns, which were now clamouring for 
admission, and not to be denied, they kept the muti- 
neers at a distance till the gates were forced; and 
then the cavalry streamed in, and victory was easy. ' 



232 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS RISE AND 

isotr. The retribution was terrible, and just. Hundreds fell 
beneath the sabres of the Dragoons and of the native 
horsemen, who emulated the ardour of their European 
comrades. Hundreds escaped over the walls of the 
Fort, or threw down their arms and cried for mercy. 
But the excited troopers, who had seen Tippoo's 
tiger-standard floating over the citadel of Vellore, 
could not, after that hot morning-ride, believe that 
they had done their work until they had destroyed 
the " cubs." They were eager to be led into the 
Palace, and there to inflict condign punishment on 
those whom they believed to be the real instigators 
of the butchery of their countrymen. For a moment 
there was a doubt in Gillespie's mind ; but an appeal 
from Colonel Marriott, in whose charge was the 
Mysore famil}'-, removed it; and he put forth a re- 
straining hand. He would not soil his victory with 
any cruel reprisals. The members of Tippoo's family 
were now at his mercy, and the mercy which he 
showed them was that which the Christian soldier 
delights to rain down upon the fallen and the help- 
less.* 

* Eor all tlie facts given in tlie that Mnjor Coats, 'u-lio was bearer of 
text, I liave the authority of a mass the news, w^as outside the Fort at the 
of official, semi-official, and private time of the outbreak. It is very 
contemporary correspondence, wliich generally stated, too, that when 
I have very carefully collated. In Gillespie wished to enter the Eort in 
doing so, 1 have been compelled to advance of his men, as there were no 
reject some personal incidents which ladders and no ropes, the survivors 
have hitherto generally formed part of tlie 69th fastened their belts to- 
of the narrative of the " Massacre gether, and thus drew him up the 
of Vellore," but which, however walls. But I have before me two 
serviceable they may be for purposes letters, signed " U. Gillespie," which 
ot effective historical writing, are, I state that lie w^as. drawn up by a 
am sorry to say, at best apocryphal, rope. Among the fictitious inci- 
It has been said that the officer who dents of the mutiny may be men- 
carried the tidings to Arcot escaped tioned the whole of the stories which 
through a sally-port, and swam the tell of the foul murder of English 
ditch of the Port so famous for the women, and the braining of little 
number and size of its alligators, children before their mothers' eyes. 
Sober official correspondence states 



PROGRESS OF DISAFFECTION. 233 

But tlie storm had not expended itself in this fierce 1806. 
convulsion. Taught by so stern a lesson, the Go- 
vernment resolved that ^' all orders which might be 
liable to the objection of affecting the usages of the 
troops," should be abandoned. But the obnoxious 
hats might have been burnt before the eyes of the 
troops, and the caste-marks and ear-rings restored on 
parade, in the presence of the Governor, the Com- 
mander-in-Chief, and all the magnates of the land; 
and still a return to quietude and contentment might 
have been far distant. Individual causes of anger 
and bitterness might be removed, but still there would 
remain, together with the mistrust they had engen- 
dered, all the vague anxieties on the one side, and the 
indefinite expectations on the other, which designing 
men had excited in the minds of the soldiery.* Re- 
bellion had been crushed for a time at its Head- 
Quarters. The British flag floated again over Vel- 
lore ; but there were other strong posts, which it had 
been intended to seize, and efforts might yet be made 
to establish revolt in other parts of the Southern 
Peninsula. 

Nor was it only in Mysore and the Carnatic that Hyderabad, 
the spirit of disaffection was rife. In the Deccan, 
also, it was manifesting itself in a manner which, for 
a while, created serious alarm. At Hyderabad, the 
capital of the Nizam's dominions, there was a high 

* " The subversion of the British unaccountable impression has been 
Empire in India by foreign invasion made upon the Sepoys, which has 
and domestic revolt, seems to have been fomented by prophecies and 
been the common theme of discourse predictions inducing a belief tliat 
all over the country, and opinions wonderful changes are about to take 
have generally 'prevailed that such a place, and that the Europeans are to 
revolution was neither an enterprise be expelled from India." — General 
of great difficulty, nor that the ac- Hai/ Macdowall. Nundydroog, Oct, 
complishment of it was far distant. 31. MS. Corresj^ondence. 
A most extraordinary and 



234 THE SErOY ARMY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

ISC6. tide of excitement. It was apprehended that the 
native troops of the Subsidiary Force, encouraged 
and aided by some of the chief people of this Maho- 
medan State, if not by the Nizam himself, would 
break out into revolt. They were wrought upon by 
nearly the same influences as had destroyed the 
loyalty of the troops in Mysore, with some peculiar 
aggravations of their own. A new commanding 
Colorel Moii- officer had recently been placed over them — a smart 
disciplinarian of the most approved European pattern. 
They had been worried and alarmed before his ar- 
rival. Montresor s appearance soon made matters 
-worse. Knowing little or nothing of the habits and 
feelings of the people of the country, he enforced 
the new orders with more than common strictness, 
and supplemented them with some obnoxious regula- 
tions of his own. An order had been issued just 
before his arrival forbidding the Sepoy to leave his 
Guard and to divest himself of his uniform during 
his period of duty ; and now the new English com- 
mandant prohibited the beating of taum-taums in the 
bazaars. It was not seen that these prohibitions were, 
in effect, orders that the Hindoo Sepoy should take no 
sustenance on duty, and that there should be no mar- 
riage and no funeral processions. When the disco- 
very was made, the new local regulations were re- 
scinded ; but it wa-s not possible to rescind the mis- 
chief that was done. There was a profound convic- 
tion among the Sepoys that it was the intention of 
jthe English to destroy their caste, to break down 
V [their religion, and forcibly to convert them to Chris- 
• tianity. And all through the long straggling lines of 
Hyderabad there was a continual buzz of alarm, and 
the Sepoys were asking each other if they had heard 



CONDUCT OF THE NIZAM. 235 

liow the English General, Wemyss Sahib, at Colombo, j 1806. 
had marched his native soldiers to Church.* j 

That the feeling of mingled fear and resentment, 
which had taken possession of the minds of the sol- 
diery, was much fomented by emissaries from the 
city of Hyderabad, is not to be doubted. Many lead- 
ing men, discontented and desperate, at all times 
prone to intrigue and ripe for rebellion, looked 
eagerly for a crisis out of which might have come 
some profit to themselves. It is probable that they 
were in communication with dependents of the House 
of Tippoo. It is certain that they fostered the re- 
sentments and stimulated the ambition of the native 
officers, and that a programme of action had been 
agreed upon, of which murder and massacre Avere the 
prelude.f But happily the Nizam and his minister, 
Meer Allum — the cAie in word, the other in spirit — 
were true to the English alliance. Wisely, in that 
conjuncture, did Sydenham confide all his troubles 
to them. It is a sad necessity to be compelled to 
communicate to a native Prince the belief of the 
English Government that their troops are not to be 
trusted. But concealment in such a case is impos- 
sible, and any attempt to disguise the truth helps 

* "It is astonishing how strong that "the native troops had been 

and how general the impression was invited to desert their colours, to 

of a systematic desif:jn to enforce the break out in open mutiny, and to 

conversion of the Sepoys to Chris- murder their officers. It was in- 

tianity. The men here heard, and tended that a commotion should have 

talked of the late arrival of some taken place in the city at the moment 

clergymen from England, and of the of the insurrection in cantonments; 

story of General Wemyss marching that Meer Allum, and all those in 

the Sepoys to church at Colombo." — the interests of the English, were to 

Captam Thomas Sydenham {Resident be destroyed; that the Soubahdar 

at Hyderabad) to Mr. Edmonstoiie, (Nizam) was to be confined, and 

July 27, 1806. MS. Correspondence. Eeridoom Jah either made Dewan or 

f Captain Sydenham wrote that, placed on the musnud, as circuni- 

from the best information he could stances might suggest." — MS. Cor- 

obtain at Hyderabad, it appeared respondence. 



236 THE SEPOY AKMY — ITS EISE AND PROGRESS. 

180G. others to exao:frorate and to distort it. The Nizam 
knew all that had been going on, perhaps before the 
British Resident had even a suspicion of it. Eager 
for his support, and willing to raise the standard of 
revolt in his name, the conspirators had conveyed to 
him a written paper signifying their wishes. He did 
not answer it. He did not give it to the Resident. 
He simply waited and did nothing. It was not in 
the nature of the man to do more. He knew the 
power of the English ; but he secretly hated them, 
and naturally shrank from opposing or betraying a 
cause which appealed to him in the name of his reli- 
gion. Perhaps it is hardly fair to expect from a 
native Prince, under such conflicting circumstances, 
more than this negative support. 

The feeling among the native troops was so strong, 
the danger appeared to be so imminent, that Mon- 
tresor was besought by some old Sepoy officers not 
to enforce the obnoxious regulations. But he replied 
that he had been selected for that especial command 
as a fitting agent for their enforcement, and how could 
he turn his back upon his duty ? But when tidings 
of the massacre at Vellore reached Hyderabad, he 
saw at once that concession must be made to the pre- 
judices of the Sepoy, and the orders were revoked in 
July 22,1S06. anticipation of instructions from the Madras Govern- 
ment. Still the troops were not satisfied. Having 
gained one victory they determined to attempt an- 
other. So they fell back upon the old grievance of 
the leather stock, and the men of some of the batta- 
lions, encouraged by their native officers, were seen 
disencumbering themselves of this article of their 
imiform on parade, and casting it contemptuously on 
the ground. A display of vigour at the right time 
crushed the mutiny era it was matured. On the 



ALARM AT NUNDYDROOG. 237 

14th of August, the troops at Hyderabad were or- 1806. 
dered under arms. The English regiment was H.M.'s 33rd 
posted near the park of artillery, and the cavalry ^Sin^ent. 
were drawn up en potence on both flanks. Then four 
Soubahdars of Native Infantry, Avho were believed to 
be the ringleaders in the mutinous movement, were 
called to the front and marched off under a guard of 
thirty Europeans and a company of Sepoys. Under 
this escort they were sent to Masulipatam. This 
movement had the best possible effect both in the 
cantonment and the city. Mutiny was awe-struck ; 
sedition was paralysed ; conciliatory explanations 
and addresses, which had before failed, were now 
crowned with success, and early in the folloAving 
month Sydenham wrote from Hyderabad that every- 
thing was " perfectly tranquil, both in the city and 
the cantonments." " The Sepoys," it added, " ap- 
pear cheerful and contented, and the Government 
goes on with considerable vigour and regularity." 

But ere long the anxieties of the Government 
again turned towards the old quarter. It was clear 
that, in the former domains of thcv Sultan, the fire, 
though suppressed for a time, had not been extin- 
guished. At Nundydroog, in the heart of the Nundjdroog 
Mysore territory, there had been symptoms of un- 
easiness from the commencement of the year. The 
native troops were few ; but the fortress, built upon 
a high scarped rock, was one of uncommon strength, 
and, well defended, might have defied attack. In 
itself, therefore, a coveted possession for the rebel 
force, it was rendered doubly important by its 
position. For it was within a night's march of 
the great station of Bangalore, and the mutineers 
from that post would have flocked to it as a 
rallying-point and a stronghold, admirably suited 



238 THE SEPOY ARMY— ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

1806. for the Head- Quarters of Rebellion." The influences, 
therefore, of which I have spoken — the fakeers, the 
conjurors, the puppet-showmen, the propagators of 
strange prophecies — were more than commonly opera- 
tive in that direction, and had success attended the 
iirst outbreak at Vellore, the Nundydroog garrison 
would then have turned upon their officers, hoisted 
the rebel flag on the walls of the Fort, and displa}'ed 
signals which might have been seen at Bangalore. 
But a season of suspended activity naturally followed 
this failure ; and it was not until the month of Oc- 
tober that they ventured to resolve on any open 
demonstration. Then the Mahomedan and Hindoo 
Sepoys feasted together, bound themselves by solemn 
eno-aofements to act as brethren in a common cause, 
and swore that they vv^ould rise against and massacre 
their English officei's. 

^^^fi"^^' The day and the hour of the butchery were fixed. 
The native soldiery had quietly sent their families out 
of the Fort, and otherwise prepared for the struggle.f 
Two hours before midnight on the 18th of October 
the Sepoys were to have rushed upon their English 
officers, and not left a white man living in the place. 

C ipt. Baynes. But about eight o'clock on that evening an English 
officer galloped up to the house of the Commandant 
Cuppage, and told him that no time was to be lost ; 
that the Sepoys were on the point of rising, and that 

* Mark Wilks wrote to Barry themselves a strong post on wliich 
Close, with reference to this move- to assemble in force. Cuppage's 
ment at Nundydroog: "I do not garrison, though small, may have 
know what to make of all this ; men had it in view to seize on Nundy- 
who had any great combination in droog. Possessed of this strong post, 
view could scaicely have any design the conspirators would have probably 
to act on so small a scale." But assembled upon it in force, and pro- 
Barry Close, taking a more compre- ceeded to act against us openly." — 
hensive view, replied: "The great MS. Correspondence. 
object of the Insurgents at Vellore f Colonel Cuppage to Barry Close 
aeenis to have been to secure to — MS. Correspondence. 



ALARM AT PALLAMCOTTAII. 239 

means of safety must at once be sought. Scarce had 1806. 
the story been told, when an old and distmguished 
native officer came breathless with the same intelli- 
gence. There was no room for doubt ; no time for 
delay. An express, calling for reinforcements, was 
despatched to Bangalore; and the officers, selecting 
one of their houses in the Pagoda-square, which 
seemed best adapted to purposes of defence, took post 
together and waited the issue. The night passed 
without an attack ; and on the morrow afternoon 
safety came in the shape of a squadron of Dragoons 
from Bangalore. Colonel Davis had received the 
tidings soon after daybreak, and by three o'clock his 
troopers were clattering into Nundydroog. 

November came, and with it came new troubles. PallamcottaiL 
Far down the coast, not many leagues removed from 
the southernmost part of the Peninsula, lies the station 
of Pallamcottah. There Major Welsh, with six Euro- 
pean officers under him, commanded a Sepoy battalion, 
in which many relatives of the mutineers cut up at 
Vellore were brooding over their loss of kindred. 
Towards the end of the third week of the month, it 
was believed that the Mahomedan Sepoys were about 
to rise and to massacre all the Europeans in the place. 
The story ran that, rejecting with contempt the idea 
of banding themselves with the Hindoos, they had 
met at a mosque and concerted their murderous plans. 
Some buildings were to be fired in the cantonment to 
draw the English officers from their homes. In the 
confusion, the whole were to be slain, the Fort was to 
be seized, and the rebel flag hoisted on the ramparts. 
Scenting the plot, a Malabar-man went to the mosque 
in disguise, and carried tidings of it to the English 
Commandant. The danger appeared to be imminent, 
and Welsh at once took his measures to avert it, 



240 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

Whatever may have been the judgment and discretion 
of the man, his courage and determination were 
conspicuous; and his comrades were of the same 
temper. Assuming the bold, intrepid front, which 
has so often been known to overawe multitudes, this 
little handful of undaunted Englishmen seized and 
confined thirteen native officers, and turned five 
hundred Mussulman Sepoys out of the Fort. That 
they were able to accomplish this, even with the sup- 
port of the Hindoos, was declared to be a proof that 
no desperate measures had really been designed. But 
the premature explosion of a plot of this kind always 
creates a panic. In a state of fear and surprise, men 
are not capable of reasoning. There is a vague im- 
pression that boldness presages power ; that there is 
something behind the imposing front. A single man 
has ere now routed a whole garrison. I am not sure, 
therefore, that there was no danger, because it was so 
easily trodden out. 

Two days afterwards Colonel Dyce, who com- 
manded the district of Tinnivelly, threw himself 
into Pallamcottah ; assembled the Hindoo troops ; 
told them that he had come there to maintain the 
authority of the Company, or to die in the defence of 
the colours which he had sworn to protect. He then 
called upon those who were of the same mind to ap- 
proach the British flag for the same purpose, but if 
not, to depart in peace. They went up and took the 
oath to a man, presented arms to the colours, gave 
three unbidden cheers in earnest of their unshaken 
loyalty, and fell in as on a muster-parade. 

On the first appearance of danger, Welsh had 
despatched a letter by a country-boat to Ceylon, call- 
ing for European troops, and the call was responded 
to with an alacrity beyond all praise. But so eifec- 



FATE OF MAJOR WELSX 241 

tual were tlie measures ^vliicli liad been already 1806. 
adopted, or so little of real danger had there been, 
that when the succour which had been sent for 
arrived from Trichinopoly, the alarm had passed, 
and the work was done. 

Told as I have told this story — a simple recital of 
facts, as written down in contemporary correspondence 
— it would appear to afford an instructive example of 
the virtue of promptitude and vigour. But this is not 
the only lesson to be learnt from it. It is more in- 
structive still to note that Major Welsh was severely 
condemned as an alarmist, the tendency of whose 
precipitate action Avas to destroy confidence and to 
create irritation. Another officer,* who, apprehend- 
ing danger, had disarmed his regiment as a precau- 
tion, was denounced with still greater vehemence. f 
Apprehensions of this kind were, described as ^' dis- 
graceful and groundless panics ;" and political officers 
chuckled to think that it was proposed at Madras to 
remove from their commands and to bring to Courts- 
Martial the officers who had considered it their duty 
not to wait to be attacked. J With these lessons before 

* Lieutenant-Colonel Grant. and lie and Welsh ordered for Court- 

f I find this fact recorded in the Martial. Both were honourably ac- 

correspondence of the day with three quitted. 

notes of exclamation : " With regard J Many years after the occurrence 

to Colonel Grant," wrote Major of these events, Major, then Colonel 

Wilks from Mysore, " it appears Welsh, published two volumes of 

that he disarmed his troops simply Military Reminiscences. Turning to 

as a measure of precaution ! ! ! Wlie- these for some account of the affair 

ther we are in danger from our own at Pallamcottah, I was disappointed 

misconduct, or from worse causes, to find only the following scanty 

the danger is great. ... I conclude notice of it : " Towards tiie end of 

that Chalmers will be sent to super- the year an event took place, which, 

sede Grant, and Vesey to Pallamcot- althongii injurious to my own pros- 

tah, and my best hope is that there pects and fortune, under the signal 

will be found sufiicient grounds for "blessing of Providence terminated 

turning Welsh and Grant out of the fortunately. Time has now spread 

service, but this will not restore tlie his oblivious wings over the whole 

confidence of the Sepoys." — M.S. occurrence, and I will not attempt 

Correspondence. Grant's conduct was to remove the veil." 
at once repudiated in a general order, 

R 



bud, 



242 THE SEPOY ARMY— ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

ISOO. us, we cannot wonder that men, in sucli conjunctures, 
should hesitate to strike the blow which any one may 
declare uncalled-for, and the wusdom of which no one 
can prove — should pause to consider whether they are 
more likely to develop the evil by an assertion of 
strength, or to encourage its growth by the feebleness 
of inaction.* 
AVallajaha- But it was plain that, whatsoever might be the wisest 

course in such a conjuncture, the Government of Lord 
William Bentinck was all in favour of the milder and 
more sedative mode of treatment. In remarkable 
contrast to the manner in which the symptoms of 
coming mutiny were grappled with at Pallamcottah 
stands the story of Wallajahabad. Some of the earliest 
signs of disaffection, on the score of the turban, had 
manifested themselves at that place ; and Gillespie, 
Avith his dragoons, had been despatclied thither at 
the end of July, not without a murmur of discontent 
at the thought of his "poor hard-worked fellows" 
being sent to counteract what appeared to him a 
doubtful danger. It Avas believed, however, that 
the uneasiness had passed away, and for some 
months there had been apparent tranquillity. But 
in November the alarm began to revive ; and a 



* The difficulties of tlie English severest censure, as weH as respon- 
officer at that time were thus de- sible for liis own and the lives of his 
scribed by a contemporary writer, in European officers. On liie contrary, 
a passage which I have chanced upon if he took precautionary measures 
since the above was written : " The lie was accused of creating unneces- 
niassacre at Vellore had naturally sary distrust ; and equally censured 
created a great degree of mistrust for being premature and not allow- 
between the European officers and ing the mutiny to ^o en till satis- 
the Sepoys throughout the Army ; factorily proved, when it would have 
and the indecision of measures at been too late to prevent." — Stric- 
Head-Quarters seemed further to tares on the present Government of 
strengthen this mistrust. If an India, Sfc. In a Letter from an Officer 
officer took no precautionary mca- resident on the spot. Triclinopotj^ 
sures on receiving information of an 1807 ; London^ 1808. 
intended plot, he was liable to the 



GOVERNMENT MEASURES. 243 

detailed statement of various indications of a coming 1^0-3. 
outbreak, drawn up by Major Hazlewood, was sent to 
the authorities. On the mornino; of the 2nd of De- 
cember the members of the Madras Government met 
in Council. Hazlewood's statement was laid before 
them and gravely discussed; but with no definite 
result. The Council broke up without a decision, but 
only to meet again, refreshed by the sea-breeze and 
the evening ride. Then it was resolved that a discreet 
officer, in the confidence of Government, should be 
sent to Wallajahabad to inquire into and report on 
the state of affairs ; and on the same evening Colonel 
Munro, the Quartermaster- General, received his in- 
structions, and prepared to depart. The event ap- 
peared to justify this cautious line of action ; but 
one shudders to think what might have happened at 
Wallajahabad whilst Government were deliberating 
over written statements of danger, and drafting in- 
structions for a Staff-officer in the Council-Chamber 
of Madras. 

Six months had now passed since the Madras Go- Dec i^oo 
vernment had been made acquainted with the state 
of feeling in the Native Army, and understood that a 
vague apprehension of the destruction of caste and of 
"forcible conversion to Christianity" had been one 
of the chief causes of the prevailing disquietude. 
The obnoxious regulations had been abandoned, but 
this was a concession obviously extorted from fear ; 
and nothing had yet been done to reassure the 
minds of the soldiery by a kindly paternal address 
to them from the fountain-head of the local Govern- 
ment. But at last Bentinck and his colleagues 
awoke to a sense of the plain and palpable duty 
which lay before them ; and at this Council of the 
2nd of December a Proclamation was agreed upon, 

K 2 



244: THE SErOY ARMY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

1806. and on the following day issued, wliich, translated 
into the Hindostanee, the Tamul, and Telegoo dia- 
lects, was sent to every native battalion in the Army, 
with orders to commanding officers to make its con- 
tents known to every native officer and Sepoy under 
their command. After adverting to the extraordinary 
agitation that had for some time prevailed in the 
Coast Army, and the reports spread for malicious 
purposes, by persons of evil intention, that it Avas the 
design of the British Government to convert the 
troops by forcible means to Christianity, the Procla- 
mation proceeded to declare that the constant kind- 
ness and liberality at all times shown to the Sepoy 
should convince him of the happiness of his situation, 
" greater than what the troops of any other part of 
the world enjoy," and induce him to return to the 
good conduct for which he had been distinguished in 
the days of Law^rence and Coote, and " other re- 
nowned heroes." If they would not, they would 
learn that the British Government ^' is not less pre- 
pared to punish the guilty than to protect and dis- 
tinguish those w^ho are deserving of its favour." But 
this was something more than the truth. The British 
Government did not show^ itself, in this conjuncture, 
to be '^prepared to punish the guilty" in a manner 
proportionate to the measure of their offences. Lord 
William Bentinck and his Councillors were all for 
clemency. Sir John Cradock counselled the adoption 
of more vigorous punitory measures, and the Supreme 
Government were disposed to support the military 
chief. Something of a compromise then ensued, the 
result of which was a very moderate instalment of the 
retribution which w^as justly due. A few only of the 
most guilty of the murderers w^ere executed ; whilst 
others, clearly convicted of taking part in the sangui- 



CAUSES OF THE MUTINY. 245 

nary revolt, were merely dismissed the service. And 1806. 

if it had not been for the overruling authority of the 

Government at Calcutta — that is, of Sir George 

Barlow, with Mr. Edmonstone at his elbow* — ^the 

numbers of the assassin-battalions would not have 

been erased from the Army List. But penal measures 

did not end here. The higher tribunals of the Home 

Government condemned the chief authorities of 

Madras, and, justly or unjustly, the Governor, the 

Commander-in-Chief, and the Adjutant- General, were 

summarily removed from office. 

The mutiny died out with the old year ; the active 1807. 

danger was passed; but it left behind it a flood ^l^eged 

^ 1 . 1 . 1 TT Ti 1 •! causes of tUo 

of bitter controversy which did not readily subside. Kevolt. 

What was the cause of the revolt ? Whose fault was 
it? Was it a mere military mutiny, the growth of 
internal irritation, or was it a political movement 
fomented by agitators from without ? The contro- 
versialists on both sides were partly wrong and partly 
right — wrong in their denials, right in their assertions. 
It is difficult in such a case to put together in proper 
sequence all the links of a great chain of events ter- 
minating even in an incident of yesterday, so little do 
we know of what is stirring in the occult heart of 
native society. After a lapse of half a century it is 
impossible. There is often in the Simultaneous, the 
Coincidental, an apparent uniformity of tendency, 
which simulates design, but which, so far as human 
agency is concerned, is wholly fortuitous. We see 

* Many years afterwards, Sir formed at Vellore." "His wise and 

George Barlow gracefully acknow- steady counsel," added Barlow, " af- 

ledged the valuable assistance which, forded me important aid and support 

in this conjuncture, Mr. Edmonstone in carrying into effect the measures ' 

had rendered to him, saying that his necessary for counteracting the im- 

*' unshaken firmness and resolution pressions made by that alarming 

in times of internal difficulty and event, wliich threatened the most 

danger" were " signally displayed serious consequences to the security 

on. the discovery of tlie coui>])iracy of our power." — MS. Documents. 



246 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

1807. this in the commonest concerns of life. We see it 
in events affecting mightily the destinies of empires. 
Under a pressure of concurrent annoyances and 
vexations, men often cry out that there is a con- 
spiracy against them, and the historical inquirer 
often sees a conspiracy when in reality there is only 
a coincidence. A great disaster, like the massacre at 
Yellore, acts like iodine upon hidden writings in rice- 
water. Suddenly is proclaimed to us in all its signifi- 
cance what has long been written down on the page 
of the Past, but which, for want of the revealing agent, 
has hitherto lain illegibly before us. Doubtless, 
many hidden things were disclosed to us at this time ; 
but whether they were peculiar to the crisis or of a 
normal character, at any period discernible, had we 
taken proper steps to develop them, was matter of 
grave dispute. The political officers, headed by Mark 
Wilks;, the historian of Southern India, who was then 
representing British interests in Mysore, laughed to 
scorn the discoveries of the military officers, and 
said that the things which they spoke of as so por- 
tentous were in reality only phenomena of every-day 
appearance, familiar to men acquainted with the feel- 
ings and habits of the people. He derided all that 
had been said about seditious conversations in the 
Bazaars and the Lines, the wild prophecies and mys- 
terious hints of wandering Fakeers, and the sugges- 
tive devices of the puppet-shows.* There was nothing 
in all this, he contended, of an exceptional character, 
to be regarded as the harbingers of mutiny and mas- 
sacre. And his arguments culminated in the chuckling 
assertion that the military authorities had discovered 

* There were two subjects whicli of the French over the English, the 

the Kootpooilee • Wallahs extremely one intended to excite hatred, the 

delighted to illustrate — tlie degrada- other contempt, iu the minds of the 

tion of the Mogul, and the victories spectators. 



MILITARY ARGUMENTS. 247 

a cabalistic document of a most treasonable character, ^^07. 
wliicb appeared to their excited imaginations to be a 
plan for partitioning the territory to be wrested from 
the English, but which, in reality, was nothing more 
portentous than the scribblement of the Dervish Bazee, 
or "royal game of goose." 

With equal confidence on the other hand, the mili- 
tary authorities protested that the new regulations 
had nothing to do with the mutiny — that it was alto- 
gether, a political movement. The new cap, they 
said, had been accepted and worn by the Sepoys. 
Three representative men, types of the principal na- 
tionalities composing the Coast Army, had signified 
their satisfaction with the new head-dress, and one or 
two regiments en masse had been paraded in it with- 
out a murmur. The fact, they alleged, was that the 
movement had emanated solely from the deposed 
family of Tippoo Sultan ; that its object was to re- 
store, in the first instance, the Mahomedan dynasty 
in Southern India, and eventually to recover the 
imperial throne for the Mogul. If proper precautions 
had been taken by Government — if Tippoo's family, 
eager for a taste of blood, had not been left to disport 
themselves at will in Vellore — if they had not been 
gorged mth money, and attended by countless Mus- 
sulman followers eager to recover the posts and the pri- 
vileges which they had lost, there would, said the mili- 
tary leaders, have been no massacre and no mutiny 
and, some said, not even a murmur of discontent; 
But the military critic was as wrong as the political, 
and for the same reason. Each was blinded by pro- 
fessional interests and professional prejudices. Each 
argued in self-defence. The truth, as it commonly 
does in such cases, lay midway between the two 
extremes. But for the intrigues of Tippoo's family 



248 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

1807. <;liere would have been no outbreak at that time, and 
but for the new military regulations they might have 
intrigued in vain. It so happened that the political 
and military influences were adverse to us at the 
same moment, and that from the conjuncture arose 
the event known in history as the Massacre of 
Vellore, but which was in reality a much more 
extensive military combination, prevented only by 
repeated local failures from swelling into the dimen- 
sions of a general revolt of the Coast Army. 

Nor is it to be forgotten that there was a third 
party, which attributed the calamity less to political 
and to military causes than to the general uneasiness, 
which had taken possession of the native mind in con- 
sequence of the supposed activity of Christian mis- 
sionaries and of certain " missionary chaplains." The 
dread of a general destruction of Caste and forcible 
conversion to Christianity was not confined to the 
Sepoys. The most preposterous stories were current 
in the Bazaars. Among other wild fables, which took 
firm hold of the popular mind, was one to the efi'ect 
that the Company's officers had collected all the 
newly-manufactured salt, had divided it into two 
great heaps, and over one had sprinkled the blood of 
hogs, and over the other the blood of cows; that 
they had then sent it to be sold throughout the 
country for the pollution and the desecration of 
Mahomedans and Hindoos, that all mi^-ht be brouoht 
to one caste and to one religion like the English. 
AVhen this absurd story was circulated, some ceased 
altogether to eat salt, and some purchased, at high 
price, and carefully stored away, supplies of tlie neces- 
sary article, guaranteed to have been in the Bazaars, 
before the atrocious act of the Feringhees had been 
committed. Another story was that the Collector of 



LYING RUMOURS. 249 

Trincomalee had, under tlie orders of Government, 1S07. 
laid the foundation of a Christian Church in his dis- 
trict close to the great Pagoda of the Hindoos ; that 
he had collected all the stone-cutters and builders in 
the neighbourhood ; that he was taxing every house- 
hold for the payment of the cost of the building; 
that he had forbidden all ingress to the Pagoda, and 
all worshipping of idols ; and that to all complaints 
on the subject he had replied that there was nothing 
extraordinary in what he was doing, as Government 
had ordered a similar building to be erected in every 
town and every village in the country. In India, 
stories of this kind are readily believed. The grosser 
the lie the more eagerly it is devoured.* They are 
circulated by designing persons with a certainty that 
they will not be lost. That the excitement of religious 
alarm was the principal means by which the enemies 
of the British Government hoped to accomplish their 
objects is certain ; but if there had not been a foregone 
determination to excite this alarm, nothing in the 
actual progress of Christianity at that time would 
have done it. A comparison, indeed, between the re- 
ligious status of the English in India and the wild 
stories of forcible conversion, which were then circu- 

* Not immediately illustrating this sible despatch. It happened that 

point of inquiry, but even more pre- the dead body of a native without a 

posterous in itself than the rumours head was found near the Kesidency, 

cited in the text, was a story which and that a drunken European artil- 

was circulated at Hyderabad. It leryman, about the same time, at- 

was stated that an oracle in a neii^li- tacked a native sentry at his post, 

bouring Pagoda had declared that These facts gave new wings to the 

there was considerable treasure at report, and such was the alarm that 

the bottom of a well in the European the natives would not leave their 

barracks, which was destined not to homes or work after dark, and it was 

be discovered until a certain number reported both to the Nizam and his 

of human heads liad been offered up minister that a hundred bodies witli- 

to the tutelar deity of the place ; out heads were lying on the banks of 

and that accordingly the European the Moose River. — Captain Si/den- 

soldiers were sacrificing the neces- ham to the Government of India. MS, 

sary number of victims with all pos- Records. 



Home Go- 
vernment. 



250 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS RISE AND PROGRESS. 

1SQ7. lated, seemed openly to give the lie to the maliguaiit 
inventions of the enemy. There were no indications 
on the part of Government of any especial concern for 
the interests of Christianity, and among the officers of 
the Army there were so few external signs of religion 
that the Sepoys scarcely knew whether they owned 
any faith at all.* But in a state of panic men do not 
pause to reason ; and if at any time the doubt had 
been suggested, it would have been astutely answered 
that the English gentlemen cared only to destroy the 
religions of the country, and to make the people all of 
one or of no caste, in order that they might make 
their soldiers and servants do everything they wished. 
Views of tlie The authoritative judgment of a Special Commis- 
sion appointed to investigate the causes of the out- 
break confirmed the views of the more moderate sec- 
tion of the community, which recognised, not one, 
but many disturbing agencies ; and the Home Go- 
vernment accepted the interpretation in a candid and 
impartial spirit. That " the late innovations as to 
the dress and appearance of the Sepoys were the 
leading cause of the mutiny, and the other was the 
residence of the family of the late Tippoo Sultan at 
Vellore," was, doubtless, true as far as it went. But 
the merchant-rulers of Leadenhall-street were dis- 
posed to sound the lower depths of the difficulty. 
Those were not days when the numerous urgent 
claims of the Present imperatively forbad the elaborate 
investigation of the Past. So the Directors began 
seriously to consider what had been the more remote 
predisposing causes of the almost general disaffisction 

* Sir John Cradock said, after the melancholy trutli that so unfrequeiit 

occurrence of these events, that are the religious observances of offi- 

" from the total absence of religious cers doing duty with battalions, tliat 

establishments in the interior of the the Sepoys have not, until very 

country, from the habits of life pre- lately, discovered the nature of the 

valent among military men, it is a religion professed by the EagiiiU." 



VIEWS OF THE COURT OF DIRECTORS. 2ol 

of the Coast Army. And the " Chairs," in a mas- 1807. 
terly letter to Mr. Dundas, freighted with the solid 
intelligence of Charles Grant, declared their convic- 
tion that the general decline of the fidelity of the 
Army and of the attachment of the People to British 
rule, was to be traced to the fact that a new class of 
men, with little knowledge of India, little interest in 
its inhabitants, and little toleration for their pre- 
judices, had begun to monopolise the chief seats in the 
Government and the chief posts in the Army; that 
the annexations of Lord Wellesley had beggared the 
old Mahomedan families, and had shaken the belief 
of the people in British moderation and good faith ; 
and that the whole tendency of the existing system 
was to promote the intrusion of a rampant Eng- 
lishism, and thus to widen the gulf between the 
Rulers and the Ruled.* 

* The Cliairman and Deputy- the President of the Board of Con 
Chairman of the East India Com- trol (Mr. Dundas). — J/i^y 18, 1S07. 
pany (Mr. Parrv and Mr. Grant) to MS. Rec:>rdi. 



252 THE SEPOY ARMT — ITS DECLINE. 



CHAPTER II. 

SUBSIDENCE OF ALAUM— THE SOLDIER IN ENGLAND AND IN INDIA— TUB 
SEPOY AND HIS OEFICER — DETERIORATING INFLUENCES — THE DRAINAGE 
OF THE STAFF — PROGRESS OF CENTRALISATION — THE REORGANISATION 
OF 1824 — THE BARRACKPORE MUTINY — THE HALF-BATTA ORDER — ABO- 
LITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 

180M809. It was not strano;e that for some time after the oc- 
currence of these events in the Coast Army, the Eng- 
lish in Southern India should have been possessed by 
a common sense of anger, and that this feeling should 
have spread to some other parts of the country. For 
a while the white man saw a conspirator beneath the 
folds of every turban, and a conspiracy in every 
group of people talking by the wayside. In every 
laugh there was an insult, and in every shrug there 
was a menace. English officers pillowed their heads on 
loaded fire-arms, and fondled the hilts of their swords 
as they slept. But gradually they lived down the sen- 
sitiveness that so distressed them. Other thoughts and 
feelings took possession of the bungalow ; other sub- 
jects were dominant in the mess-room. And ere long 
a new grievance came to supersede an old danger ; 
and the officers of the Madras Army forgot the rcbcl- 
Mutin f ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ Sepoys as they incubated a rebellion of 
Madras their o^vu. How the mutiny of the officers grew out 
1809?^* of the mutiny of the men of the Coast Army, it 
would not be difficult to show; but the chapter of 



BENEWAL OF CONFIDENCE. 253 

Indian history which includes the former need not be 1807-1899. 
re- written here. The objects for which the officers 
contended were altogether remote from the interests 
and sympathies of the Sepoys ; and although the 
latter, in ignorance, might at first have followed their 
commanders, it is not probable that they would have 
continued to cast in their lot with the mutineers, after 
the true character of the movement had been ex- 
plained to them, and an appeal made to their fidelity 
by the State. But they were not unobservant spec- 
tators of that unseemly strife ; and the impression 
made upon the Sepoy's mind by this spectacle of 
disunion must have been of a most injurious kind. 
There is nothing so essential to the permanence of 
that Opinion, on which we so much rely, as a prevail- 
ing sense that the English in India are not Many but 
One. 

Nor was it strange that, after these unfortunate 
events, the fame of which went abroad throughout 
the whole country, there should have been for a little 
space less eagerness than before to enlist into the ser- 
vice of the Company. But the reluctance passed 
away under the soothing influence of time. In the 
prompt and regular issue of pay, and in the pensions, 
which had all the security of funded property, there 
were attractions, unknown to Asiatic armies, not 
easily to be resisted. And there were other privi- 
leges, equally dear to the people of the country, which 
lured them by thousands into the ranks of the Com- 
pany's Army. As soon as his name was on the 
muster-roll, the Sepoy, and through him all the 
members of his family, passed under the special pro- 
tection of the State. 

It is difficult to conceive two conditions of life The English 
more dissimilar in their social aspects than soldiering ° ^^^' 



254. THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1807-1809. in India and soldiering in England. In England, few 
men enlist into the Army as an honourable profes- 
sion, or seek it as an advantageous source of subsist- 
ence. Few men enter it with any high hopes or any 
p'.easurable emotions. The recruit has commonly 
broken down as a civihan. Of ruined fortune and 
bankrupt reputation, he is tempted, cheated, snared 
into the x\rmy. Lying placards on the w^alls, lying 
^vords in the pot-house, the gaudy ribbons of Ser- 
geant Kite, the drum and the fife and the strong 
drink, captivate and enthral him when he is not 
master of himself He has quarrelled with his sweet- 
heart or robbed his employer. He has exhausted 
the patience of his own people, and the outer world 
has turned its back upon him. And so he goes for a 
soldier. As soon as he has taken the shilling, he has 
gone right out of the family circle and out of the 
circle of civil life. He is a thousandth part of a 
regiment of the Line. Perhaps he has changed his 
name and stripped himself of his personal identity. 
Anyhow, he is as one dead. Little more is heard 
of him ; and unless it be some doting old mother, 
who best loves the blackest sheep of the flock, nobody 
much wishes to hear. It is often, indeed, no greater 
I source of pride to an English family to knoAv that 
one of its members is serving the Queen, in the ranks 
of her Army, than to know that one is provided for, 
as a convict, at the national expense. 
The Indian But the native soldier of India was altogether of a 
Soliier. different kind. When he became a soldier, he did 
not cease to be a civilian. He severed no family 
ties ; he abandoned no civil rights. He was not the 
outcast, but the stay and the pride of his house. He 
visited his home at stated times. He remitted to it 
H large part of his pay. It was a decorous boast in 



HEREDITARY SOLDIERS. 255 

many families that generation after generation had 1807-1809. 
eaten the Company's salt. Often, indeed, in one 
household you might see the Past, the Present, and 
the Future of this coveted military service. There 
was the ancient pensioner under the shade of the 
banyan-tree in his native village, who had stories to 
tell of Lawrence, Coote, and Medows ; of battles 
fought with the French ; of the long war with Hyder 
and the later struggles with his son. There was the 
Sepoy, on furlough from active service, in the prime 
of his life, who had his stories also to tell of " the 
great Lord's brother," the younger Wellesley, of 
Harris and Baird, perhaps of " Bikrum Sahib" and Abercrombie 
Egypt, and how "Lick Sahib," the fine old man,"^^^"^'* 
when provisions were scarce in the camp, had ridden 
through the lines, eating dried pulse for his dinner. 
And there was the bright-eyed, supple-limbed, quick- 
witted boy, who looked forward with eager expect- 
ancy to the time when he would be permitted to 
take his father's place, and serve under some noted 
leader. It was no fond delusion, no trick of our self- 
love, to believe in such pictures as this. The Com- 
pany's Sepoys had a genuine pride in their colours, 
and the classes from which they were drawn rejoiced 
in their connexion with the paramount State. It was 
honourable service, sought by the very flower of the 
people, and to be dismissed from it was a heavy 
punishment and a sore disgrace. 

Strong as were these ties, the people were bound 
to the military service of the Company by the still 
stronger ties of self-interest. For not only were the Civil privi- 
Sepoys, as has been said, well cared-for as soldiers g^^^^ °^ ^'^® 
— well paid and well pensioned — but, as civilians, 
they had large privileges which others did not enjoy. 
Many of them, belonging to the lesser yeomanry of 



256 THE SErOY AKMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1807-1809. the country, were possessors of, or shareholders in^ 
small landed estates. And thus endoAved, they re- 
joiced greatly in a regulation which gave the Sepoy 
on furlough a right to be heard before other suitors 
in our civil courts.* In a country whose people are 
inordinately given to litigation, and where justice is 
commonly slow-paced, this was so prodigious a boon, 
that entrance to the service was often sought for the 
express purpose of securing this valuable precedence, 
and the soldier-member of the family thus became 
the representative of his whole house. In this con- 
nexion of the soldiery with hereditary rights in the 
soil, there was an additional guarantee for his loyalty 
and good conduct. He was not merely a soldier — a 
component unit of number two company, third file 
from the right; lie was an important member of 
society, a distinct individuality in his native village 
. no less than in his cantonment Lines. He i^etained 
I his self-respect and the respect of others ; and had a 
personal interest in the stability of the Government 
under which his rights were secured. 

And whilst these extraneous advantages were at- 
tached to his position as a soldier of the Company, 
there was nothing inherent in the service itself to 
The Sepoy render it distasteful to him. His officers were aliens 
Officel^ of another colour and another creed ; but the Hindoo 

was accustomed to foreign supremacy, and the Ma- 
homedan, profoundly impressed with the mutabilities 
of fortune, bowed himself to the stern necessities of 
fate. As long as the Sepoy respected the personal 

* This was a part only of the Pavliamentary Committee of 1832, 

civil privileges enjoyed by the native said that the withdrawal of these 

soldier. A memorandum in the Ap- privileges had been regarded as an 

pendix will show the full extent of especial grievance by the Sepoys — 

the advantages conferred upon him but I have failed to discover that 

by this class-legislation. Sir Jasper they ever were withdrawn. 
KicoUs, in his evidence before the 



THE SEPOY AND lUS OFFICER. 257 

qualities of the English officer, and the English officer lSO0-182f 
felt a personal attachment for the Sepoy, the relations 
between them were in no degree marred by any con- 
siderations of difference of race. There was a stron^: 
sense of comradeship between them, which atoned for 
the absence of other ties. The accidental severance 
of which I have spoken was but short-lived.* In that 
first quarter of the present century, which saw so 
much hard fio;htinor in the field, the heart of tlie 
Sepoy officer again turned towards his men, and the 
men looked up and clung to him with child-like con- 
fidence and affection. To command a company, and, 
in due course, a regiment of Sepoys, was still held to 
be a worthy object of professional ambition. The 
regiment, in those days, was the officer s home, whe- 
ther in camp, or cantonment, or on the line of march. 
There was but little looking beyond ; little hankering 
to leave it. To interest himself in the daily concerns 
of the Sepoys, to converse with them off parade, to 
enter into their feelings, to contribute to their com- 
forts, were duties, the performance of which occupied 
his time, amused his mincl, and yielded as much 
happiness to himself as it imparted to others. 
There was, in truth, little to divert him from the 
business of his profession or to raise up a barrier be- 
tween him and his men. Intercourse with Europe 
was rare and difficult. Neither the charms of Eng- 
lish literature nor the attractions of English woman- 
hood alienated his affections from the routine of 

* There liad certainly' been, liefore Mr. Dundas, referred to above, tliis is 
llie mutiny in Southern India, a very allej^ed to have been one of the re- 
culpable want of kindly consideration mote causes of the mutiny. It is 
on the part of our Enulish officers stated that the English had ceased, 
for the native officers and men of the to offer ciiairs to their native officers 
Sopoy army. In the letter, written when visited by thein, A favourab'*" 
by tiie Chairman and Depiity-Ohair- reaction^ however, seems afterward* 
man of the East India Company, to to have set iu. 



258 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1809-22. military life, and made its details dull and dreary m 
liis sight. He had subdued his habits, and yeiy 
much his way of thinking, to the Orientalism by 
which he was surrounded. He was glad to welcome 
the native officer to his bungalow, to learn from him 
the news of the Lines and the gossip of the Bazaar, 
and to tell him, in turn, what were the chances of an- 
other campaign and to what new station the regiment 
was likely to be moved at the approaching annual 
Relief. If there were any complaints in the regi- 
ment, the grievance was stated with freedom on the 
one side, and listened to with interest on the other. 
If the men were right, there was a remedy ; if they 
were wrong, there was an explanation. The Sepoy 
looked to his officer as to one who had both the 
power and the will to dispense ample justice to him. 
in every battalion, indeed, the men turned to their 
commandant as the depository of all their griefs, and 
the redresser of all their wrongs. They called him 
their father, and he rejoiced to describe them as his 
'^ babalogue" — his babes. 
Progress of But in time the power was taken from him, and 
with the power went also the will. A variety of 
deteriorating circumstances occurred — some the in- 
evitable growth of British progress in the East, and 
some the results of ignorance, thoughtlessness, or 
miscalculation on the part of the governing body. 
The power of the English officer was curtailed and 
his influence declined. The command of a regiment 
had once been something more than a name. The 
commanding-officer could promote his men, could 
punish his men, could dress them and discipline them 
as he pleased. The different battalions were called 
after the commander who had first led them to vic- 
tovVy and they rejoiced to be so distinguished. But, 



Centralisa- 
tion. 



RELAXATION OF OLD TIES. 259 

little by little, this power, by the absorbing action of 1822-1835, 
progressive centralisation, was taken out of his hands ; 
and he who, supreme in his own little circle, had 
been now a patriarch and now a despot, shrivelled 
into the mouthpiece of the Adjutant- General's office 
and the instrument of Head-quarters. The decisions 
of the commanding officer were appealed against, and 
frequently set aside. In the emphatic language of the 
East, he was made to eat dirt in the presence of his 
men. The Sepoy, then, ceased to look up to him as 
the centre of his hopes and fears, and the command- 
ing officer lost much of the interest which he before 
took in his men, when he kncAV how much their 
happiness and comfort depended upon his individual 
acts, and how the discipline and good conduct of the 
corps were the reflexion of his personal efficiency. 

And it happened that, about the same time, new En^^and is 
objects of interest sprung up to render more com- 
plete the severance of the ties which had onc^ bound, 
the English officer to the native soldier. The second 
quarter of the nineteenth century in India was a 
period of progressive reform. We reformed our Go- 
vernment and we reformed ourselves. Increased 
facilities of intercourse with Europe gave a more 
European complexion to society. English news, Eng- 
lish books, above all, English gentlewomen, made 
their way freely and rapidly to India. The Over- 
land Mail bringing news scarcely more than a month 
old of the last new European revolution ; the book- 
club yielding its stores of light literature as fresh as 
is commonly obtained from circulating libraries at 
home ; and an avatar of fair young English maidens, 
with the bloom of the Western summer on their 
cheeks, yielded attractions beside which the gossip of 
the lines and the feeble garrulity of the old Soubahdar 

\ 2 " 



260 THE SEPOY ATim'— ITS DECLINE. 

1822-35. were very dreary and fatiguing. Little by little, the 
Sepoy officer shook out the loose folds of his Ori- 
entalism. Many had been wont, in the absence of other 
female society, to solace themselves with the charms 
of a dusky mate, and to spend much time in the re- 
cesses of the Zenana. Bad as it was, when tried in 
the crucible of Christian ethics, it was not without its 
military advantages. The English officer, so mated, 
learnt to speak the languages of the country, and to 
understand the habits and feelings of the people ; and 
he cherished a kindlier feeling for the native races 
than he would have done if no such alliances had 
been formed. But this custom passed away with the 
cause that produced it. The English wife displaced 
the native mistress. A new code of morals was recog- 
nised ; and the Zenana was proscribed. With the ap- 
.pearance of the English gentlewoman in the military 
j cantonment there grew up a host of new interests 
^ 'and new excitements, and the regiment became a 
bore. 
Staff employ- AVliilst these influences were sensibly weakening 
'"^^** the attachment which had existed between the native 

soldier and his En^-lish officer, another deteriorating: 
agent was at work with still more fatal effect. The 
Staff was carrying off all the best officers, and un- 
settling the rest. As the red line of British Empire 
extended itself around new provinces, and the admi- 
nistrative business of the State Avas thus largely in- 
creased, there was a demand for more workmen than 
the Civil Service could supply, and the military esta- 
blishment of the Company was, therefore, indented 
upon for officers to fill the numerous civil and poli- 
tical posts thus opened out before them. Extensive 
surveys were to be conducted, great public works 
were to be executed, ncAv irregular regiments Avere to 



THE DRAINAGE OF THE STAFF. 261 

be raised, and territories not made subject to the ] 822-35. 
*' regulations" were, for the most part, to be adminis- 
tered by military men. More lucrative, and held to 
be more honourable than common regimental duty, 
these appointments were eagerly coveted by the officers 
of the Company's army. The temptation, indeed, 
v/as great. The means of marrying, of providing for 
a family, of securing a retreat to Europe before en- 
feebled by years or broken down by disease, were 
presented to the officer by this detached employment. 
And if these natural feelings were not paramount, 
there was the strong incentive of ambition or the 
purer desire to enter upon a career of more a/:tive 
utility. The number of officers with a regiment was 
thus reduced ; but numbers are not strength, and 
still fewer might have sufficed, if they had been a 
chosen few. But of those who remained some lived 
in a state of restless expectancy, others were sunk 
in sullen despair. It was not easy to find a Sepoy 
officer, pure and simple, with no aspirations beyond 
his regiment, cheerful, content, indeed, proud of his 
position. All that was gone. The officer ceased to 
rejoice in his work, and the men saw his heart was 
not with them. 

There were some special circumstances, too, which 
at this time — during the administrations of Lord 
Amherst and Lord William Bentinck — tended to 
aggravate these deteriorating influences both upon 
the officers and the men of the Sepoy regiments. 
Since the subsidence of the spirit of disaffection, 
which had pervaded the Coast Army in 1806, there 
had been no obtrusive manifestations of discontent in 
the Sepoy's mind. He had done his duty faithfully 
and gallantly in the great wars, which Lord Hastings 



262 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1822. had conducted to a triumphant issue ; but when peace 
came again, he again, after a while, began to take 
stock of his troubles and to listen to strange reports. 
One more illustration may be drawn from Madras, 
before the Bengal Army claims a monopoly of the 
record. In the early spring of 1 822 . a paper was 
dropped in the Cavalry Lines of Arcot, setting forth 
MahoTTiedan that the followers of Mahome d, having been sub- 
jected to the power of the English, suffered great 
hardships — that being so subjected^ their prayers were 
not acceptable to the Almighty, and that, therefore, 
in great numbers they were dying of cholera morbus 
— that the curse of God was upon them ; and that, 
therefore, it behoved them to make a great eifort for 
the sake of their religion. There were countless 
Hindoos and Mussulmans between Arcot and Delhi. 
But the Europeans being few, it would be easy to slay 
the whole in one day. Let them but combine, and 
the result would be certain. There was no time, it 
said, to be lost. The English had taken all the 
Jagheers and Inams of the people of the soil, and 
'^ now they were about to deprive them of employment. 
A number of European regiments had been called 
for, and in the course of six months all the native 
battalions would be disbanded. Let, then, the senior 
Soubahdar of each regiment instruct the other Sou- 
bahdars, and let them instruct the Jemadars, and so 
on, till all the Sepoys were instructed, and the same 
being done at Yellore, at Chittore, at Madras, and 
other places, then, on a given signal, the whole 
should rise on one day. The day fixed was Sunday, 
the 17th of March. A Naick and ten Sepoys were 
to proceed at midnight to the house of each Eu- 
ropean, and kill him, without remorse, in his bed. 
This done, the regiments would be placed under the 



GRIEVANCES OF THE SOLDIERY. 263 

command of the native officers, and tlie Soubahdars 1822. 
should have the pay of Colonels. It was always thus. 
It is always thus. A little for the Faith, and all for 
the Pocket. 

From whomsoever this paper may have emanated, 
the attempt to corrupt the Sepoys was a failure. It 
was picked up in the Lines of the Sixth Cavalry, and 
another nearly resembling it was dropped in the Lines 
of the Eighth — but both were carried at once to the 
commanding officer of the station. Colonel Foulis 
took his measures with promptitude and vigour. He 
assembled the regimental commanders, imparted to 
them the contents of the paper, and desired them to 
place themselves in communication with the native 
officers whom they most trusted. Having done this, 
he wrote to the commandants of the several stations 
named in the paper. But they could see no signs of 
disaffection ; and the appointed day passed by without 
even an audible murmur of discontent. But not 
many days afterwards, the_Governor of Madras re- Sir Thon.aa 
ceived by the post a letter in Hindostanee, purporting 
to come from the principal native officers and Sepoys^ 
of the Army, setting forth the grievances under which 
they suffered as a body. The complaint was that all 
the wealth and all the honour went to the white 
Sirdars, especially to the civilians, whilst for the 
soldier there was nothing but labour and grief. " If 
we Sepoys take a countr}^," they said, " by the sword, 
these whore-son cowardly civil Sirdars enter that 
country and rule over it, and in a short time till 
their coffers with money and go to Europe — but if a 
Sepoy labour all his life, he is not tive couries the 
better." Under the Mahomedan Government, it had 
been different, for when victories were gained, 
Jagheers were given to the soldiers, and high offices 



Munro. 



V 



2G4 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1S22. distributed among them. But under the Company, 
everything was given to the Civil Service. " A single 
Collector's peon has an authority and greatness in the 
country which cannot be expressed. But that peon 
does not tight like a Sepoy." Such, in effect, was the 
plaint of the native soldiery, as conveyed to Governor 
Munro. It may have been the work of an individual, 
as might have been also the papers picked up in the 
lines of Arcot ; but it is certain that both documents 
expressed sentiments which may be supposed at all 
times to lie embedded in the Sepoy's mind, and which 
need but little to bring them, fully developed, above 
the surface.* 

The relations between the English officer and the 
native soldier were better then than they had been 
sixteen years before. But these relations were sadly 
Aveakened, and a heavy blow was given to the disci- 
pline and efficiency of the Indian army, when, two 
years later, the military establishments of the Three 

The Rcorga- Presidencies were reorganised. Then every regiment 
of two battalions became two separate regiments, and 
the officers attached to the original corps were told off 
alternately to its two parts — " all the odd or uneven 

May 6, 1S24. numbers," said the General Order, "to the first, and 
the even numbers to the second ;" by which process it 
liappened that a large number of officers were detached 
from the men with whom they had been associated 
throughout many years of active service. The evil 
of this Avas clearly seen at the time, and a feeble com- 
promise was attempted. "It is not intended," said 
the General Order, " that in carrying the present 
orders into effect, officers should be permanently re- 
moved from the particular battalion in which they 

* It was to this event that Sir markable minute on the dangers of 
Thomas Munro alluded in his re- a Free Press in India. 



WAR WITH BURMAU. 2Go 

may long have served and wished to remahi, provided 1524:. 
that by an interchange between officers standing the 
same number of removes from promotion, each could 
be retained in his particular battalion, and both 
are willing 4:o make the exchange." In eiFect^ this 
amounted to little or nothing, and a large number of 
officers drifted away from the battalions in which 
they had been reared from boyhood, and strangers 
glided into their place. 

Bad as at any time must have been such a change Tlie Burmese 
as this, in its influence upon the morale of the Sepoy ^^* 
army, the evil was greatly enhanced by falling upon 
evil times. The best preservative, and the best re- 
storative of military spirit and discipline, is commonly 
a good stirring war. But the Sepoy, though not un- 
willing to fight, was somewhat dainty and capricious 
about his fighting-ground. A. battle-field in Hin- 
dostan or the Deccan was to his taste ; but he was 
disquieted by the thought of serving in strange 
regions, of which he had heard only vague fables, 
beyond inaccessible mountain -ranges, or still more 
dreaded wildernesses of water. With the high-caste, 
fastidious Bengal Sepoy the war with Burmah was 
not, therefore, a popular war. The Madras Sepoy, 
more cosmopolitan and less nice, took readily to the 
transport vessel ; and a large part of the native force 
was drawn from the Coast Army. But some Bengal 
regiments were also needed to take part in the opera- 
tions of the war, and then the system began to fail 
us. To transport troops by sea from Calcutta to 
Rangoon would have been an easy process. But the 
Bengal Sepoy had enlisted only for service in coun- 
tries to which he could march ; to take ship was not 
in his bond. The regiments, therefore, were marched 
to the frontier station of Chittagong, and there as- 



266 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1824. sembled for tlie landward invasion of the Burmese 
country. 

Without any apparent symptoms of discontent, 
The iMutiny some corps had already marched, when, in October, the 
pore.^^^^^ " incident occurred of which I am about to write, an in- 
cident which created a most powerful sensation from 
one end of India to the other, and tended greatly to 
impair the loyalty and discipline of the Bengal Sepoy. 
The Forty-seventh Regiment had been warned for 
foreign service, and was waiting at Barrackpore, a 
few miles from the Presidency, whilst preparations 
were being made for its march in the cold weather. 
To wait is often to repent. Inactive in cantonments 
during the rainy season, and in daily intercourse 
with the men of other regiments, who had been 
warned for the same service, the Forty-seventh, unin^ 
fluenced by any other external causes, would have 
lost any ardour which might have possessed them 
when first ordered to march against a barbarous 
enemy who had insulted their flag. But it happened 
that ominous tidings of disaster came to them from 
the theatre of war The British troops had sustained 
a disaster at Ramoo, the proportions of which had 
been grossly exaggerated in the recital, and it was 
believed that the Burmese, having cut up our batta- 
lions, or driven them into the sea, were sweeping on 
to the invasion of Bengal. The native newspapers 
bristled with alarming announcements of how the 
Commander-in-Chief had been killed in action and 
the Governor-General had poisoned himself in de- 
spair; and there was a belief throughout all the 
loAver provinces of India that the rule of the Company 
was coming to an end. The fidelity of the Sepoy 
army requires the stimulus of continued success. 
Nothing tries it so fatally as disaster. When, 



THE TROOPS AT BARRACKPORE. 267 

therefore, news came that the war had opened with a 1S24. 
great failure, humiliating to the British power, and 
all kinds of strange stories relating to the difficulties 
of the country to be traversed, the deadliness of the 
climate to be endured, and the prowess of the enemy 
to be encountered, forced their way into circulation 
in the Bazaars and in the Lines, the willingness 
which the Sepoys had once shown to take part in 
the operations beyond the frontier began to subside, 
and they were eager to find a pretext for refusing to 
march on such hazardous service. And, unhappily, 
one was soon found. There was a scarcity of avail- 
able carriage-cattle for the movement of the troops. 
Neither bullocks nor drivers were to be hired, and 
fabulous prices were demanded from purchasers for 
wretched starvelings not equal to a day's journey. 
For the use of the regiments which had already 
marched, Bengal had been well-nigh swept out, and 
the reports which had since arrived rendered it diffi- 
cult to persuade men voluntarily to accompany as 
camp-followers an expedition fraught with such pecu* 
liar perils. All the effi^rts of the Commissariat failed 
to obtain the required supply of cattle ; and so the 
Sepoys were told to supply themselves. In this con- 
juncture, it would seem that a new lie was circulated 
through the Lines of Barrackpore. It was said that 
as the Bengal regiments could not, for want of cattle, 
be marched to Chittagong, they would be put on 
board ship and carried to Rangoon, across the Bay 
of Bengal. Murmurs of discontent then developed 
into oaths of resistance. The regiments warned for 
service in Burmah met in nightly conclave, and 
vowed not to cross the sea. 

Still foremost in this movement, the Forty-seventh 
Regiment was commanded by Colonel Cartwright. 



2 08 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1824. Rightly measuring the difficulty, and moved with 
compassion for the Sepoy, who really had just ground 
of complaint, he offered to provide cattle from his 
private funds ; and all the refuse animals, either too 
old or too young for service, were got together, and 
the Government offered to advance money for their 
purchase. But the terrible ban of " Too Late" w^as 
written across these conciliatory measures. The re- 
giment was already tainted with the ineradicable virus 
of mutiny, which soon broke out on parade. The 
Sepoys declared that they would not proceed to 
Burmah by sea, and that they would not march 
unless they w^ere guaranteed the increased allowances 
known in the jargon of the East as " double batta." 
This was on the 30th of October. On the 1st of 
November, another parade was summoned. The be- 
haviour of the Sepoys w^as worse than before — violent, 
outrageous, not to be forgiven ; and they remained 
masters of the situation throughout both the day and 
night. Then the Commander-in-Chief appeared on 
the scene. A hard, strict disciplinarian, wdth no 
knowledge of the native army, and a bitter prejudice 
against it, Sir Edward Paget w^as a man of the very 
metal to tread dow^n insurrection with an iron heel, 
regardless both of causes and of consequences. He 
carried with him to Barrackpore tw^o European regi- 
ments, a battery of European artillery, and a troop 
of the Governor-General's Body-guard. Next morn- 
ing the native regiments found themselves in the 
presence of the English troops ; but still they did not 
know the peril that awaited them, and, with a child- 
like obstinacy, they were not to be moved from their 
purpose of resistance. Some attempt w^as made at 
explanation — some attempt at conciliation. But it 
was feeble and ineffectual ; perhaps not understood. 



THE BAURACKPORE MASSACRE. 269 

They were told, then, that they must consent to 182 A. 
march, or to ground their arms. Still not seeing 
the danger, for they were not told that the Artillery 
guns Avere loaded with grape, and the gunners ready 
to fire,* they refused to obey the word ; and so the 
signal for slaughter Avas given. The guns opened 
upon them. The mutineers Avere soon in panic flight. 
Throwing aAvay their arms and accoutrements, they 
made for the river. Some Avere shot doAvn ; some 
were drowned. There Avas no attempt at battle. 
None had been contemplated. The muskets Avith 
Avhich the ground Avas strewn were found to be un • 
loaded. 

Then the formalities of the military law were called 
in to aid the stern decisions of the grape-shot. Some 
of the leading mutineers Avere convicted, and hanged ; 
and the regiment was struck out of the Army List. 
But this display of vigour, though it checked mutiny 
for the time, tended only to soav broadcast the seeds 
of future insubordinations. It created a bad moral 
efl'ect throughout the Avhole of the Bengal army. 
From Bazaar to Bazaar the ncAvs of the massacre ran 
Avith a speed almost telegraphic. The regiments, 
Avhich had already marched to the frontier, Avere dis- 
cussing the evil tidings with mingled di^^may and dis- 
gust before the intelligence, sent by special express, 
had reached the ears of the British chiefs. "They 
are your OAvn men whom you have been destroying," 
said an old native officer; and he could not trust 
himself to say more.f The Bengal regiments, Avith 1825. 
the expeditionary force, had soon a grievance of 
their oaa^, and the remembrance of this dark tragedy 

* It is doubtful, indeed, wlietlier Burmese War." By T. C. Robertson 

ihey knew that the guns were in the to whom was entrusted the political 

rear of the European regiments. conduct of the war. 

j- "Political Incidents of tiis first 



270 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1823. increased the bitterness with which they discussed it. 
The high-caste men were writhing under an order 
which, on the occupation of Arracan, condemned the 
whole body of the soldiery to work, as labourers, in 
the construction of their barracks and lines. The 
English soldier fell to with a v/ill ; the Madras Sepoy 
cheerfully followed his example. But the Bengal 
soldier asked if Brahmins and Rajpoots were to be 
treated like Coolies, and, for a while, there was an 
apprehension that it might become necessary to make 
another terrible example after the Barrackpore pat- 
tern. But this was fortunately averted. General 
Morrison called a parade, and addressed the recusants. 
The speech, sensible and to the point, was translated 
by Captain Phillips ; and so adnurable was his free 
rendering of it, so perfect the manner in which he 
clothed it with familiar language, making every word 
carry a meaning, every sentence strike some chord of 
sympathy in the Sepoy's breast, that when he had 
done, the high-caste Hindostanees looked at each 
other, understood what they read in their comrades' 
faces, and forthwith stripped to their work. 

Thus was an incipient mutiny checked by a few 
telling words. And the sad event which had gone 
before might have been averted also if there had 
been as much tact and address as " promptitude and 
decision." A few sentences of well-chosen, well-de- 
livered Hindostanee, on tViat fatal November morning, 
might have brought the Sepoys back to reason and 
to loyalty. But they had the benefit of neither wise 
counsel from within nor kindly exhortation from 
without. Deprived, by the reconstruction of the 
Army, of the officers whom they had long known and 
trusted, they were more than ever in need of external 
aid to brlnfr them back to a ridit state of feelino:. 

v3 O O 



HALF-BATTA. 271 

They wanted a General of Division, such as Malcohn 1825-35. 
or Ochterlony, to reawaken their soldierly instincts — 
their pride in their colours, their loyalty to their 
Salt. But, instead of such judicious treatment as 
would have shown them their own folly, as in a glass, 
the martinets of the Horse Guards, stern in their 
unsympathising ignorance, their ruthless prejudices, 
had, in our own territories, at the very seat of go- 
vernment, in the presence of no pressing danger, no 
other lessons to teach, no other remedies to apply, 
than those which were to be administered at the 
bayonet's point and the cannon's mouth. 

With the return of peace came ncAV disquietudes. Tlie Half- 
A reign of Retrenchment commenced. Alarmed by 
the expenses of their military establishments, the 
Company sent out imperative orders for their reduc- 
tion — orders more than once issued before, more than 
once disobeyed. Blows of this kind commonly fall 
upon the weakest — upon those least able to endure 
them. So it happened that the condition of the re- 
gimental officer having, by a variety of antecedent 
circumstances, been shorn of well-nigh all its advan- 
tages, was rendered still more grievous and intolerable 
by the curtailment of his pecuniary allowances. An 
order, known in military history as the Half-Batta 
Order, was passed, by which all officers stationed 
within ^ certain distance from the Presidency were 
deprived of a large per-centage of their pay.* The 
order excited the utmost dismay throughout the 
Army ; but the discontent which it engendered vented 
itself in words. Twice before the officers of the Com- 
pany's army had resented similar encroachments, and 

* Or, in strict professional Ian- former, which was small, was en- 

guage, his allowances. The frross hanced by several substantial acces- 

salary of an Indian officer was known sories, as tent age, house-rent, and 

as his '*pay and allowances." Tlie batta, or field allowance. 



272 THE SEPOr ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1825-35 had been prepared to strike in defence of their asserted 
rights. But this last bloAV did not rouse them to re- 
bellion. Never before had justice and reason been so 
clearly upon their side ; but, keenly as they felt their 
wrongs, they did not threaten the Government they 
served, but loyally protested against the treatment to 
which they had been subjected. The humours of 
which their memorials could not wholly relieve them, 
a Press, virtually free, carried off like a great conduit. 
The excitement expended itself in newspaper para- 
graphs, and gradually subsided. But it left behind it 
an after-growth of unanticipated evils. The little zeal 
that was left in the regimental officer was thus crushed 
out of him, and the Sepoy, who had watched the 
decline, little by little, of the power once vested in 
the English captain, now saw him injured and humi- 
liated by his Government, without any power of 
resistance ; saw that he was no longer under the 
special protection of the State, and so lost all respect 
for an instrument so feeble and so despised. 
Abolition of And as though it were a laudable achievement 

nj^shment."^''' ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^^ '^^^ "^^^^'^ soldier of all fear of his 
European officer, another order went forth during 
the same interval of peace, abolishing the punishment 
of the lash throughout the Sepoy army in India. So 
little was he a drunkard and a ruffian, that it was a 
rare spectacle to see a black soldier writhing under 
the drummer's cat. But when the penalty, though 
still retained in the European army, became illegal 
and impossible among them, the native soldiery felt 
that another blow was struck at military authority — 
another tie of restraint unloosed. It was looked upon 
less as a boon than as a concession — less as the growth 
of our humanity than of our fear. So the Sepoy did 
not love us bette*^- but held us a little more in con- 
tempt. 



GENERAL DETERIORATION. 



There were great diversities of sentiment upon this 18S2. 
point, and some, whose opinions were entitled to 
respect, believed in the wisdom of the measure. But 
the weight of authority was against it,* and, some 
ten years afterwards, Hardinge revived what Ben- 
tinck had abolished. But even before the act of 
abolition, by a variety of concurrent causes, the 
character and the conduct of the Sepoy Army were 
so impaired, that an officer who had served long 
with them, and knew them well, declared, in his 
evidence before a Committee of Parliament, that *' in 
all the higher qualifications of soldiers, in devoted- 
ness to the service, readiness for any duty they may 
be called upon to perform, cheerfulness under priva- 
tions, confidence and attachment to their officers, un- 
hesitating and un calculating bravery in the field, 
without regard either to the number or the character 
of the enemy, the native soldier is allowed by all the 
best-informed officers of the service, by those who 
have most experience, and are best acquainted with 
their character, to have infinitely deteriorated. "t 



* Numerous illustrations might be 
cited, but none more significant (ban 
the following anecdote, told by Mr. 
Ciiarles Raikes : " I recollect a con- 
versation wliich I had in 1839 with 
an old pensioned Soubahdar. I in- 
quired of him how the measure would 
work. He replied, that the abolition 
of the punishment would induce some 
classes to enter the Army wlio had 
not done so before. *But, Sahib/ 



said the old man, * Fouj-beh-durr 
hofjya^ (The Army has ceased to 
fear.)" Another native officer said : 
" The English, to manage us rightly, 
should hold the whip in one hand 
and the nehtoys (sweetmeats) in the 
other. You have dropped the whip, 
and now hold out sweets to us in 
botli hands." 

f Evidence of Captain Macau ia 
1832. 



274 THE SEPOY AEMV — ITS DECLINE, 



CHAPTER III. 

THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN — PERNICIOUS EFFECTS OF DEFEAT— THE AN- 
NEXATION OF SCINDE — RESULTS OF EXTENSION OF EMPIRE— THE INDUS 
ALLOWANCES — MUTINY OF THE THIRTY-FOURTH [SESIMENT — EMBARRASS- 
MENTS OF GOVERNMENT— THE MARCH OF THE SIXTY' FOURTH — MUTINY 
AT SHIKARPORE — DISAFFECTION IN THE MADRAS ARMY. 

The War in Peace is never long-lived in India, and the Army 
^iTa'b.'^'^* was soon again in the bustle and excitement of active 
service. There was a long war ; and, if it had been a 
glorious one, it might have had a salutary effect upon 
the disposition of the Sepoy. But when all his sol- 
dierly qualities were thus, as it were, at the last gasp, 
the War in Afghanistan came to teach him a new 
lesson, and the worst, at that time, which he could 
have been taught. He learnt then, for the first time, 
that a British army is not invincible in the field; 
that the great " Ikhbal," or Fortune, of the Company, 
which had carried us gloriously through so many 
great enterprises, might sometimes disastrously fail us ; 
lie saw the proud colours of the British nation defiled 
in the bloody snows of Afghanistan, and he believed 
that our reign was hastening to a close. The charm 
of a century of conquest was then broken. In all 
parts of Upper India it was the talk of the Bazaars 
that the tide of victory had turned against the Fe- 
ringhees, and that they would soon be driven into 



THE AFGHAN WAR. 27 J 

the sea. Then the Sikh arose and the Mahratta be- 1841-42. 
stirred himself, rejoicing in our humiliation, and 
eagerly watching the next move. Then it was that 
those amongst us, who knew best what was seething 
in the heart of Indian society, were "ashamed to 
look a native in the face." The crisis was a perilous 
one, and the most experienced Indian statesmen re- 
garded it with dismay, not knowing what a day 
might produce. They had no faith in our allies, no 1S42, 
faith in our soldiery. An Army of Retribution, under 
a wise and trusted leader, went forth to restore the 
tarnished lustre of the British name ; but ominous 
whispers soon came from his camp that that Army 
was tainted — that the Sepoy regiments, no longer 
assured and fortified by the sight of that ascendant 
Star of Fortune which once had shone with so bright 
and steady a light, shrunk from entering the passes 
which had been the grave of so many of their com- 
rades. It was too true. The Sikhs were tampering 
with their fidelity. Brahmin emissaries were endea- 
vouring to swear them on the Holy Water not to 
advance at the word of the English commander. 
Nightly meetings of delegates from the different re- 
giments wxre being held; and, perhaps, we do not 
even now know how great was the danger. But the 
sound discretion and excellent tact of Pollock, aided 
by the energies of Henry Lawrence and Richmond 
Shakespear, brought the Sepoys to a better temper, 
and, when the word was given, they entered the 
dreaded passes, and, confiding in their leader, car- 
ried victory with them up to the walls of the Afghan 
capital. 

The Sepoy did his duty well under Pollock. He 
had done his duty well under Nott, who spoke with 
admiration of his " beautiful regiments," and man- 

T 2 



276 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1S43. fully resented any imputation cast upon tliem. And 
when, after the British Army had been disentangled 
from the defiles of Afghanistan, war was made against 
the Ameers of Scinde, the Sepoy went gallantly to 
the encounter with the fierce Belloochee fighting- 
man, and Napier covered him with praise. Then 
there was another war, and the native regiments of 
the Company went bravely up the slopes of Maha- 
rajpore, and turned not aside from the well-planted, 
well-manned batteries of the turbulent Mahrattas. 
But peace came, and with peace its dangers. Scinde 
had become a British province, and the Sepoy, who 
had helped to conquer, had no wish to garrison the 
country. 
I^psulfsofthe The direct and immediate result of well-nigh every 
Sdride!^ annexation of Territory, by which our Indian empire 
has been extended, may be clearly discerned in the 
shattered discipline of the Sepoy Army. To extend 
our empire without increasing our means of defence 
was not theoretically unreasonable ; for it might 
have been supposed that as the number of our enemies 
was reduced by conquest and subjection, the necessity 
for the maintenance of a great standing army was 
diminished rather than increased. These annexations, 
it was said, consolidated our own territories by eradi- 
cating some native principality in the midst of them, 
or else substituted one frontier, and perhaps a securer 
one, for another. But the security of our empire lay 
in the fidelity of our soldiery. To diminish the num- 
ber of our enemies, and to extend the area of the 
country to be occupied by our troops, was at the same 
time to diminish the importance of the Sepoy, and to 
render his service more irksome to him ; for it sent 
him to strange places far away from his home, to do 
the work of military Police. It frittered away in small 



DIFFICULTIES OF ANNEXATION. 277 

detached bodies the limited European force at the dis- 1S43-44. 
posal of the Indian Government, or massed large ones 
on a distant frontier. This extension of territory, 
indeed, whilst it made us more dependent upon our 
native troops, made that dependence more hazardous. 
The conversion of Scinde into a British province, by 
which our long line of annexations was commenced, 
had burnt this truth into our history before Lord 
Dalhousie appeared upon the scene. For indeed it 
was a sore trial to the Sepoy to be posted in a 
dreary outlying graveyard of this kind, far away 
from his home and his people — far beyond the limits 
of the empire in which he had enlisted to serve. 
And when it was proposed to take from him the 
additional allowances, which had been issued to the 
troops, on active service in an enemy's country, on 
the plea that they had subsided into the occupation 
of British cantonments, he resented this severe logic, 
and rose against the retrenchment. He did not see 
why, standing upon the same ground, he should not 
receive the same pay, because the red line of the 
British boundary had been extended by a flourish of 
the pen, and the population of the country had by 
the same magic process been converted into British 
subjects ; and still less easily could he reconcile him- 
self to the decision when he thought that the Sepoy 
himself had contributed to bring about the result that 
was so injurious to him ; that he had helped to win 
a province for his employers, and, in return for this 
good service, had been deprived of part of his pay. 
In the old time, when the Company's troops con- ^' 
quered a country, they had profited in many ways by| 
the achievement, but now they were condemned to, 
suffer as though gallantry were a crime. 

In more than a camel-load of documents the story 



278 THE SEPOi: army — its decline. 

1814. lies recorded ; but it must be briefly narrated hc^e 
Mntinyof the ]n the mouth of February, 1844, Governor-General 
11 y-ouri. j]iigi^}3Qj.Qygl^^ being then absent from his Council in 
the Upper Provinces, received the disheartening in- 
telligence that the Thirty-fourth Sepoy Regiment of 
Bengal, which had been warned for service in Scinde, 
had been halted at Ferozepore. It had refused to 
enter our newly-acquired province, unless its services 
Avere purchased by the grant of the additional allow- 
ances given to the soldiery beyond the Indus in time 
of war. The distressino^ character of the intellio^ence 
was aggravated by many circumstances of time and 
place. In a moment, Ellenborough's quick percep- 
tions had grappled the whole portentous truth. Our 
troops were mutinjang for pay, on the Punjab 
frontier, almost in the presence of the disorderly 
masses of Sikh troops, who, gorged with the donatives 
they had forced from a weak Government, were then 
dominating the empire. Other regiments were coming 
up, on the same service, who might be expected to 
follow the rebellious lead of the Thirty-fourth ; and 
so EUenborough and Napier might have four^'^ them- 
selves with "the province they had just conquered on 
their hands, and no means of securing its military 
occupation, wifhout destroying the authority of Go- 
vernment by humiliating concessions. 

In this conjuncture, the first thing that Ellen- 
borough did was the best that could have been done. 
He delegated to the Commander-in-Chief the full 
powers of the Governor-General in Council for the 
suppression of mutiny in the Army. But, how were 
those powers to be exercised ? Doubt and perplexity, 
and something nearly approaching consternation, per- 
vaded Army Head-Quarters. The Seventh Bengal 
Cavalry, on the line of march to the frontier, had 



PROGRESS OF MUTINY. 279 

brolcen into open mutiny, and in spite of all the ef- 1S44. 
forts of their officers, who had guaranteed to pay them 
from their own funds the allowances they demanded, 
the troopers had refused to obey the trumpet-call to 
inarch, and were halted, therefore, sullen and obsti- 
nate, in the neighbourhood of Ferozepore. Some 
companies of Native Artillery had already refused 
to march, and there were rumours of other resri- 
ments beino; on the eve of declarino; their refusal. 
The most obvious course, under such circumstances, 
was to march the recusant regiments back to one or 
more of the large stations, as Loodhianah and Meerut, . 
where European troops were posted, and there to 
disband them. But sinister whispers were abroad that 
the sympathies of the Europeans, in this instance, were 
with the native soldiery. One regiment of the Line, 
it was reported, had openly declared that it would not 
act against the Sepoys, who were demanding no more 
than their rights. There were Sikh emissaries from 
beyond the Sutlej doing their best to debauch the 
Sepoys by offering both their sympathy and their 
assistance. Dick, the General of Division, declared 
his belief that an order to the mutineers to march 
back for disbandment would not be obeyed ; and a 
violent collision at such a time would have set the 
whole frontier in a blaze. The project of disbandment 
was, therefore, suspended ; and all the more readily, as 
even at Head- Quarters there was a belief that, al- 
though the recusant troops might have had no reason- 
able ground of complaint, the actual state of the case 
with respect to the Scinde pay and allowances had not 
been properly explained to them.* 

* Tlie extraordinary allowances — Indus in 1838, on their marcli to 

the withdrawal of which iiad created Candaliar and Caubul. They were 

all this ill feeling — were originally withdrawn from the troops in Scinde 

granted when the troops crossed the early in 1840, when there seemed to 



280 THE SEPOY ARMY— ITS DECLINE. 

1S44.. Uncondemned, the mutinous regiments were or- 

dered back to the stations from which they had 
marched, to await the result of a reference to the 
Governor -General; and other corps, warned for 
the Scinde service, came up to the frontier. Dick's 
first and wisest impulse had been to halt the re- 
giments marching to Ferozepore, in order that 
they might not run the risk of contamination by 
the tainted corps, or the corrupting influence of 
the Sikhs. But, by some strange fatality, this judi- 
cious measure had been revoked ; the regiments 
marched to the frontier; and Dick's difficulties in- 
Tlie Sixty- creased. The Sixty-ninth refused to embark, unless 
Fourth^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ Indus allowances were guaranteed to them. 
By the exertions of the officers, one-half of the regi- 
ment was afterwards brought round to a sense of 
their duty ; they loaded their carriage cattle, marched 
to the banks of the river, and declared their willing- 
ness to embark on the boats. They ought to have 
been embarked at once with the colours of their 
regiment. Their comrades would then have followed 
them ; and other regiments, moved by the good ex- 
ample, might also have asserted their fidelity. But the 
golden opportunity was lost ; and all example was in 
the way of evil. The Fourth Regiment, trusted over- 
much by its commanders, followed the Sixty-ninth 
into mutiny at Ferozepore, and such was the conduct 
of the Sepoys, that Philip Goldney, a man of equal 
courage and capacity, suddenly called to the scene 
of tumult, drew upon one of the foremost oi the 
mutineers, and a younger officer, moved to passion 

be no lonj^er any extraordinary duties were restored; but tliey were afrain 

to be performed by them. Wlien reduced from the 1st of July, 1843, 

the insurrection broke out in Af- after the close of the war in Af^hau- 

glianistan, and retributory opjerations istan and the conquest of Scinde. 
were commenced, the allowances 



CONDUCT OF THE SIXTY-FOURTH. 281 

by their violence, struck out with a bayonet, and 1S41.. 
wounded two soldiers in the face. Those were days 
when mutiny did not mean massacre, and the Sepoy 
did not turn upon his officer. But neither regiment 
would march. On many hard-fought fields Sir Robert 
Dick had proved himself to be a good soldier, but 
he was not equal to such a crisis as this : so Ellen- 
borough at once ordered him to be cushioned in some 
safer place. 

In the mean while, aid to the embarrassed Govern- 
ment was coming from an unexpected quarter. The 
Sixty-fourth Regiment of Sepoys had formed part of TheSlxiy. 
that unfortunate detachment known in history as 
Wilde's Brigade, which had been sent, before Pollock's 
arrival at Peshawur, to carry the Khybur Pass, with- 
out guns and without provisions. It had afterwards 
served with credit during the second Afghan cam- 
paign, since the close of which it had been cantoned 
at the frontier station of Loodhianah. The Sepoys 
had manifested a strong reluctance to serve in Scinde, 
and had addressed to the Adjutant- General more 
than one uvzee^ or petition, couched in language of 
complaint almost akin to mutiny. From Loodhianah 
the regiment had been ordered down to Benares. 
On the 15th of February it reached Umballah, then 
become the Head-Quarters of the Sirhind division of 
the Army, which General Fast, an old officer of the 
Company's service, commanded. Well able to con- 
verse in the language of the country, and knowing, 
from long intercourse with them, the character and 
feelings of the native soldiery. Fast believed that 
something might still be done to bring the regiment 
back to its allegiance. So he halted the Sixty- fourth 
at Umballah, and summoned the native officers to his 
presence. Questioned as to the disposition of the 



282 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1844. regiment, they one and all declared that the men had 
never refused to march to Scinde ; that they were 
still willing to march ; that only on the evening 
before the native officers had severally ascertained 
the fact from their respective companies; that the 
matter of the allowances would not influence the 
Sepoys ; and that the mutinous urzees had emanated 
only from a few bad characters in the regiment ; 
perhaps, it was added, from a Sepoy who had been 
already dismissed. From these and other representa- 
tions, it appeared to the General that the Sixty-fourth 
really desired to wipe out the stain, which the urzees 
had fixed upon their character, and, believing in this, 
he recommended that they should be permitted to 
march to Scinde. Under certain stringent conditions, 
the Commander-in-Chief adopted the recommenda- 
tion ; and so Moseley, with his Sepoys, again turned 
,his face towards the Indus. 

The disposition of the regiment now seemed to be 
so good ; it was marching with such apparent cheer- 
fulness towards the dreaded regions, and setting so 
good an example to others, that the Commander-in- 
Chief was minded to stimulate its alacrity, and to 
reward its returning fidelity, by a voluntary tender of 
special pay and pension, and relaxations of the terms 
of service.* The language of these instructions w^as 
somewhat vague, and Moseley, eager to convey glad 

* "In addition to the full or unhealthy, and under no clrcum- 

marching batta always allowed to stances be kept in Scinde beyond 

regiments serving in Scinde, still two years, while the indulgence of 

liiglier advantages in regard to pay, furlough to visit their homes will, in 

together with the benefits of the re- the latter case, be extended to the 

gulated family pension to the heirs men in the proportion enjoyed by 

of those who may die from disease corps located at stations within the 

contracted on service." The com- British frontier." — \_The Adjutant- 

manding officer was also instructed General to Colonel Moseley, March 

"to make known to the corps that 15, 1844.] Scinde, however, had 

it sliail be brought back to a station become a British "province," and 

in the provinces in one year in the was "within the British frontier." 
event of the ensning season proving 



COLONEL MOSELEY AND THE SIXTY-FOLTiin. 283 

tidings to his men, turned the vagueness to account 1844. 
by exaggerating the boon that was offered to them. 
And so the error of Head-Quarters v/as made doubly 
erroneous, and the Govern or- General was driven wild 
by the blunder of the Commander-in-Chief. 

Whatsoever Head-Quarters might have intended to 
grant, was contingent upon the good conduct of the 
regiment. But before the letter had been received by 
Moseley, on the line of march, mutiny had again 
broken out in the ranks of the Sixty-fourth. At 
Moodkhee, now so famous in the annals of Indian 
warfare, the regiment, not liking the route that had 
been taken, assumed a threatening front, and at- 
tempted to seize the colours.* The petulance of the 
hour was suppressed, and next day the regiment re- 
sumed its march. But transitory as was the out- 
break, it was mutiny in one of its worst forms. 
On the second day, the Colonel received, at Tibbee, 
the letter from Head-Quarters, on the subject of 
the additional alloAvances. The outbreak at Mood- 
khee had converted it into an historical document, to 
be quietly put aside for purposes of future record. It 
was, indeed, a dead letter. The fatal words " too 
late" were already written across the page. But 
Moseley laid eager hands upon it, as a living reality, 
for present uses. The Sixty -fourth was plainly in an 
excitable state. It had mutinied once on tho march, 
and, Avithout the application of some very powerful 
sedative, it might mutiny again. The outbreak at 
Moodkhee had not been reported to Head-Quarters. 
It might pass into oblivion as an ugly dream of the 
past ; and the future might be rendered peaceful and 
prosperous by the letter of the Adjutant-General. So 

* It was advisable to march the either coming from that province or 

troops proceeding to Scinde along a stationed on the frontier ; and it was 

rraite which would not bring them especially desirable to mask Teroze- 

into contact with other regiments, pore. 



284 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1841. Moseley, having caused it to be translated into Hin- 
dostanee, summoned a parade, and ordered it to be 
read aloud to his men. 

Tremendous as was this error — for it tendered to 
the mutinous the reward intended only for the 
faithful — its proportions were dwarfed bj the after- 
conduct of the infatuated Colonel. He put a gloss 
of his own on the Head-Quarters' letter, and told 
the regiment that they would receive the old Indus 
allowances given to Pollock's Army.* Upon which 
they set up a shout of exultation. And then the 
Sixty -fourth pursued its journey to Scinde. 

The horrible mistake which had thus been com- 
mitted soon began to bear bitter fruit. The inevitable 
pay-day came ; and Moseley, like a man who has 
silenced the clamorous demands of the Present 
by drawing a forged bill upon the Future, now saw 
his gigantic folly staring him in the face. The crisis 
came at Shikarpore. The Indus war-allowances were 
not forthcoming, and the Sixty-fourth refused in a 
body to receive their legitimate pay. 
George Hun- There was then, under Governor Napier, com- 
manding the troops in Scinde, an old Sepoy officer, 
familiarly and affectionately known, throughout the 
Army as George Hunter. Of a fine presence, of a 
kindly nature, and of a lively temperament, he led 
all men captive by the sunny influences of his warm 
heart and his flowing spirits ; whilst his manly courage 
and resolution commanded a wider admiration and 
respect. Of his conspicuous gallantry in action he 
carried about with him the honourable insignia in an 
arm maimed and mutilated by the crashing downward 
blow of a Jat swordsman, as he was forcing one oi 

* This was known among the Se- up the soldier's pay to twelve ru])ec3 
pojs as " Pollock's Batta." It made a mouth. 



tor. 



GEORGE HUNTER. 285 

the gates of Bhurtpore. In the whole wide circle of 1841 
the Army, there was scarcely one man whom the Sepoy 
more loved and honoured ; scarcely one whose ap- 
pearance on the scene at this moment could have had 
a more auspicious aspect. But there are moods in 
which we turn most angrily against those whom w^e 
most love ; and General Hunter in this emergency 
was as powerless as Colonel Moseley. 

George Hunter was not a man to coquet with Mutiny of ih« 
mutiny. He saw at a glance the magnitude of the ^^^'^^^ 
occasion, and he was resolute not to encourage its 
further growth by any inopportune delay. The short 
twilight of the Indian summer was already nearly 
spent when news reached him that the regiment had 
refused to receive its pay. Instantly calling a parade, 
he declared his intention of himself paying the troops. 
Darkness had now fallen upon the scene ; but lamps 
were lit, and the General commenced his w^ork. The 
light company, as the one that had evinced the most 
turbulent spirit, was called up first ; the Sepoys took 
their pay to a man, and were dismissed to their Lines. 
Of the company next called, four men had refused to 
receive their pay, when Moseley went up to the 
General, and told him that the wdiole regiment w^ould 
take their money quietly, if disbursed to them by 
their own officers. Hunter had once refused this, but 
now he consented, and again the effort to flatter the 
corps into discipline was miserably unsuccessful. No 
sooner was this reluctant consent wrung from the 
General, than the parade was broken up with a 
tumultuous roar. Filling the air with shouts, some- 
times shaped into words of derision and abuse, the 
Sepoys flocked to their Lines. In vain Hunter ordered 
them to fall in ; in vain he implored them to re- 
membei that they were soldiers. They turned upon 



286 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1844. him with the declaration that they had been lured to 
Scinde by a lie ; and when he still endeavoured to 
restore order and discipline to the scattered rabble 
into which the regiment had suddenly crumbled, they 
threw stones and bricks at the fine old soldier and the 
other officers who had gone to his aid. 

Nothing more could be done on that night; so 
Hunter went to his quarters, and waited anxiously for 
the dawn. A morning parade had been previously 
ordered, and when the General went to the ground, 
he saw, to his exceeding joy, that the Sixty-fourth 
were already drawn up — " as fine-looking and steady 
a body of men," he said, " as he could wish to see." 
No signs of disorder greeted him ; and as he inspected 
company after company, calling upon all who had 
complaints to make to come forward, the regiment 
presei^ved its staid and orderly demeanour, and it 
seemed as if a great shame held them all in inactivity 
and silence.* Returning then to the head of the 
column, drawn up left in front. Hunter proceeded to 
resume the work which had been broken off so 
uproariously on the preceding evening. Ten men of 
one company refused their pay, but none others fol- 
lowed their exam2:>le. All now seemed to be pro- 
ceeding to a favourable issue ; and Hunter believed 
that the favourable disposition which had begun to 
show itself might be confirmed by a suitable address. 
So he prepared himself to harangue them. 

The ways of the Sepoy are as unaccountable as the 
ways of a child. It is impossible to fix the limits of 
his anger, or rightly to discern the point at which his 
good temper has really returned. Unstable and in- 
consistent, his conduct baffles all powers of human 

♦ Only one man came forward, and his complaint was that he had been 
passed over in promotion. 



MUTINY OF THE SIXTY-FOURTH. wf 8T 

comprehension. So it happened that just on the l^^** 
seeming verge of success the ground crumbled away 
under Hunter's feet. As each company had been 
called up to receive its pay, the men had piled their 
arms to the word of command. But when the word 
was given to un-pile, there was an immediate shudder 
of hesitation, which seemed to be caught by one 
company from another, until it pervaded the whole 
regiment. Each man seemed to read what was in 
his neighbour's heart, and without any previous con- 
cert, therefore, they clung to each other in their dis- 
obedience. Three Grenadier Sepoys took their 
muskets, and were promoted on the spot ; but not 
another man followed their example. The regiment 
had again become a rabble. Nothing now could 
reduce them to order. 

Until the blazing June sun was rising high in the 
heavens, Hunter and the regimental officers remained 
on the parade-ground, vainly endeavouring to per- 
suade the Sepoys to return to their duty. They had 
only one answer to give — their Colonel and their 
Adjutant had promised them what they had not 
received. If the General would guarantee them the 
old Indus war-allowances, they would serve as good 
soldiers ; if not, they wished to be discharged, and 
return to their homes. All through the day, and all 
through the night, without divesting themselves of 
their uniform, without going to their Lines to cook 
or to eat, the mutineers remained on the ground, 
sauntering about in the neighbourhood of their piled 
arms, and discussing their wrongs. 

Day broke, and found them still on the ground. 
But hunger and fatigue had begun to exhaust the 
energies of their resistance, and when Hunter ap- 
peared again on the scene, accompanied only by his 



288 THE SErOY AIl]\IY — ITS DECLINE. 

lU.^u aide-de-camp, and beat to arms, the men fell in, took 
their muskets, and evinced some signs of contrition. 
Then the General spoke to them, saying that he would 
receive at his quarters a man from each company, and 
hear what he had to say on the part of his comrades. 
Satisfied with this promise, and being no longer irri- 
tated by the presence of the officers who had deceived 
them, the Sixty -fourth allowed the parade to be 
quietly dismissed, and went to their Lines. At the 
appointed hour, the delegates from the several regi- 
ments waited on the General, and each man told the 
same story of the deception that had been practised 
upon the regiment. They had been promised " Ge- 
neral Pollock's Batta," and the twelve rupees which 
they had expected had dwindled down into eight. 

With this evidence before him, the General re- 
moved Colonel Moseley from the command of the 
station and from the command of the regiment,* and 
ordered the Sixty-fourth to march to Sukkur, on their 
way back to our older provinces. It was an anxious 
time; a hazardous march. So Hunter went with 
them. But the hot stage of the fever had passed, and 
the paroxysm seemed to have left them feeble and 
June 25, sorc-spcut. Unresistingly they went to Sukkur, and 
encamped iu the presence of European troops ; and 
George Hunter, thanking God that the peril was over, 
and that not a drop of blood had been shed, then 
took upon himself the responsibility of pardoning 
the regiment as a body, and bringing to punishment 
only the worst of the individual offenders.f Such 
moderation could hardly be misunderstood at a time 

* Colonel Moseley was afterwards pital punishment, and the sentence 

tried by court-martial, and cashiered, of death passed upon the others was 

f Tiiirty-nine prisoners were sent commuted to imprisonment andhmxi 

to trial, of whom one only was ac- labour for various terms, 
quilted. Six were ordered for ca- 



1844. 



DIFEICULTIES OF GOVERNMENT. 289 

v^ulen tLere was present power to enforce the decrees i^** 
of a sterner justice. So he addressed the regiment 
on parade, told them that he pardoned all but the 
leading mutineers, who would be tried by Court- 
martial ; and he trusted that the mercy thus shown to 
them would not be thrown away, that they would 
repent of their misconduct and return to their alle- 
giance. And perhaps the provocation which they 
had received was ample warrant for the leniency of 
their treatment.^ 

But the embarrassments of the Government did not 
end here. Whatsoever might be the punishment of 
the offence, it could not afford a remedy for the evil. 
The mutinous regiments might be disbanded, and 
their ringleaders might be hanged by the neck, or 
blown to atoms from the guns ; but still there would, 
be no answer to the question of how was Scinde to 
be garrisoned with British troops ? It had been the 
design of the Government to employ only Bengal 
regiments on that service, seeking aid in other 
quarters from Madras. But the Bengal Army had 
broken down under the experiment; and there was 
small hope, after what had passed, of its ever being 
induced, except by humiliating concessions, to look 
that hated province in the face. There were, how- 
ever, two other Presidencies, and two other Armies, 
not so nice as Bengal ; and the defence of Scinde 
might be entrusted to Bombay or Madras regiments. 
If such had been the design in the first instance, it 
might, under judicious management, have been suc- 

* There is something very touch- the circumstances. "I never coujI 

ing iu the humility which pervades write," he says at the end of one 

the letters written at this time by letter, "and old age does not im- 

ppCTj^e Hunter to Lord Ellenborough prove a man in any way, except, I 

and Sir Charles Napier. He asks to trust, in seeing his own failings and 

be pardoned for all short-comings, praj'ing for mercy." 
in consideration of the difficulty of 

U 



290 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1S43. cessfully carried into effect. But after such an ex 
ample as had been set by the Bengal regiments, there 
was small consolation to be drawn from the prospect 
of loyal service to be rendered by their comrades. 
Already, indeed, were there signs that the disposition 
to strike for higher pay which had manifested itself 
among the Bengal troops was not confined to the 
Sepoys of that '^ pampered and petted" Army. The 
Bombay regiments were untainted ;^ but a mutinous 
spirit had again displayed itself among the native 
soldiery of the Coast Army.f 
Mutiny of the The first Symptom of this was in a Cavalry re- 
Sixth Madras gii^gj^t at Jubbulpore. Among the results of an 
extension of empire without a corresponding aug- 
mentation of our military force, are frequent viola- 
tions of old Presidential limits in the location of our 
troops, which, however unobjectionable they may 
appear at the Adjutant- General's office, are seldom 
caiTied out without some disturbance of our military 
system. It might seem to be of small consequence 
whether the station at which a regiment was posted 
were within the limits of one Presidency or another ; 
but if a Madras regiment were called upon to serve 
in the Bengal Presidency, or a Bombay regiment in 
Madras, or any other departure from ordinary rule 
were decreed, the Government was fortunate if it 
were not seriously perplexed and embarrassed by the 
results. Now, the Madras Army, though, as has been 

* The Bombay Army was said at Infantry liad mutinied at Asseeghur 

tliat time to have more duty on its and Mallegaum ; there had been a 

hands than it could perform wilhout mutiny of the Madras troops at Se- 

a severe strain, and the Bombay Go- cunderabad ; and the 2nd and 41st 

vernment were clamouring for an Begiments had shown a bad spirit, 

augmentation. when ordered to embark for China. 

f There had been several recent The 3rd and 4th Native Cavalry 

instances of extreme insubordination, regiments had also mutinied ; the 

amounting, indeed, to mutiny, in the former in 1838, the latter in 1842. 
Madras Army. The 52nd Native 



MUTINY OF THE MADRAS TROOPS. ?^91 

said, more cosmopolitan and less nice than that of 1843. 
Bengal, and not deterred by caste prejudices from 
proceeding to strange places, suffered even more than 
the Bengal troops from being ordered to distant 
stations, because the family of the Madras soldier fol- 
lowed his regiment, whilst the belongings of his 
Bengal comrade remained in their native village. 
The removal of the family from one station to an- 
other was a sore trouble and a heavy expense to the 
Madras Sepoy ; and whatever increased the distance 
to be traversed was, therefore, a grievance to him. 

To the Cavalry it was especially a grievance, for 
the troopers were principally well-born Mahomedans, 
and the rigid seclusion in which their women were 
kept greatly increased the cost of their conveyance 
from one station to another. The Sixth Cavalry had 
been more than commonly harassed in this respect, 
when, towards the close of 1843, just as they were 
expecting to get their route for the favourite cavalry 
station of Arcot, they received orders to march from 
Kamptee to Jubbulpore, in the valley of the Ner- 
budda. which, in consequence of the demand for 
Bengal troops on the Indus, it had been necessary to 
occupy with regiments from Madras. The sharp dis- 
appointment, however, was in some measure miti- 
gated by the assurance that the service on which 
they were required was but temporary, and that they 
would soon return within the proper limits of their 
own Presidency. They went, therefore, leaving their 
families behind them ; but when they reached Jub- 
bulpore, they found that they were to be permanently 
located there upon lower allowances than they had 
expected, that they must send for their families from 
Kamptee, and that their next march would be nine 
hundred miles southward to Arcot. 

u 2 



292 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1?43. Only by savings from tlieir pay at the higher rates 

could the troopers hope to defray these extraordi- 
nary expenses. On the lower rates of pay it was 
impossible ; for the greater part of their earnings 
Avas remitted for the support of their absent families, 
and what remained was barely enough to keep toge- 
ther body and soul. When, therefore, they found 
that they were to receive these lower rates at Jubbul- 
pore, they broke into open manifestations of discon- 
tent, and bound themselves by oaths to stand by each 
other whilst they resisted the unjust decree. The 
■first few days of December were, therefore, days of 
sore vexation and disturbance to the officers of the 
Sixth, and most of all to the Commandant, Major 
Major Litcli- Litchfield, to whose want of personal sympathy with 
• their sufferings the Sepoys, reasonably or unreason- 

ably, attributed a great part of their affliction. The 
conduct of the men was violent and outrageous. 
They were with difficulty induced to saddle and 
mount for exercise ; and when the trumpet sounded 
for the canter, they loosened rein, urged their horses 
forward at a dangerous pace, and raising the religious 
war-crv of " Deen ! deen !" broke into tumultuous 
disorder. Brought back to something like discipline, 
the regiment was dismissed ; but throughout the day 
the greatest excitement prevailed among them, and a 
large body of troopers marched in a defiant manner 
Capt. Byng. through the Lines to the tent of a favourite officer, 
declaring that they would obey his orders, and serve 
under him, and beseeching him to place himself at 
their head. On the following day the excitement 
had increased. The troop-officers went among their 
men, endeavouring to pacify them. But they could 
report nothing more satisfactory than that the 
troopers were in a frantic state, and that if Litchfield 



MLTI^sY AT JUBBULPORE. 293 

ventured on parade next morning the result would -^^3, 
be fatal to him. 

Undeterred by this, the Major would have held the 
parade, but the Brigadier commanding the station, 
to whom, in due course, all the circumstances were 
reported, caused it to be countermanded, and an 
Inspection Parade, under his own command, ordered 
in its stead. To this the regiment sullenly responded ; 
and when the Brigadier addressed them., saying that 
he was willing to hear their complaints, many of the 
men stepped forward and presented him with peti- 
tions, which were given over to the troop-officers, to 
be forwarded to him throuo^h the reo:ular official 
channels. But, although it was plain that there was 
a bitter feelino- of resentment ao:ainst Litchfield, no 
act of violence was committed at that parade. And 
it happened that before its dismissal a letter reached 
the Brigadier announcing that the higher allowances 
were to be given to the men ; and so the active danger 
was passed. But the disturbance which had been 
engendered did not soon pass away ; the Sepoys 
remained sullen and discontented, and for some days 
it appeared to the Brigadier not improbable that he 
would be compelled to call the Infantry and the 
Artillery to his assistance. But the Madras Army was 
spared this calamity of bloodshed ; and after a little 
while the regiment returned to the quiet and orderly 
performance of its duty. 

As the old year closed upon the scene of mutiny in iS43-ii> 
the Madras Cavalry, so, very soon, the new year opened 
upon a kindred incident in the Madras Infantry. When 
it was found that the Bengal troops were reluctant to 
serve, under the proposed terms, in the Scinde pro- 
vince, and serious embarrassment was, thereby, likely 
to be occasioned to the Supreme Government, the 



294 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1S4344.. Madras authorities, believing that the crisis was one 
in which it behoved every one to do his best, promptly 
and vigorously, for the salvation of the State, deter- 
mined, on a requisition from the Government of 
Bombay, to send two infantry regiments to Scinde.* 
The Sepoys were to embark on board transport vessels 
at Madras, to touch at Bombay, and thence to proceed 
to Kurrachee. One of these regiments, the Forty- 
seventh, was in orders for Moulmein, on the eastern 
coast of the Bay of Bengal — a station at which, being 
beyond Presidential limits, extra allowances, known 
as field-batta and rations, were paid to the troops. 
Ignorant, it would appear, of the Bengal regulations, 
the Madras Government, represented by the Marquis 
of Tweed ale, who held the double office of Governor 
and Commander-in-Chief, guaranteed to the regiments 
ordered to Scinde the allowances" received at Moul- 
mein ; and under these conditions the Forty-seventh 
embarked for Bombay. 
JK'^^^^l^^^ Meanwhile, the Supreme Government had been 

j\ladrasFo/rty- t » ■. r- i i-t n ^ ht i 

seventh. advised 01 the unauthorised measures of the Madras 
authorities. Chafing under such usurpation of the 
powers and prerogatives of the Governor- General, 
EUenborough sent orders for the detention of the 
Madras regiment at Bombay, and it was disembarked 
on its arrival, f There the Madras Sepoys learnt that 
the advantages of foreign service, promised to them at 
Madras, and on the faith of which they had set their 
faces towards Scinde, were disallowed. The greater 
part of their pay up to the end of March had already 

* Sir Charles Napier had made an be stated that one detachment of 

urgent call on Bombay, which, Bom- the regiment mutinied on board the 

bay not being able to comply with it, Jo/m Line transport vessel ; but the 

passed on to Madras. " discontent then manifested arose 

f Intelligence of the change of from circumstances unconnected 

destination was communicated to the with the after - causes of disafl'ec- 

officers during the voyage. It should tion. 



MUTINY OF THE MADRAS FORTY -SEVENTH. 295 

been disbursed to tbem, for tlie benefit of the families 1843-44. 
whom they left behind, and now they found, in the 
middle of February, that the scanty residue, on which 
they had relied for their own support, was by these 
retrenchments taken from them, and that, far away 
from their homes, starvation stared them in the face. 
It was not strange that they should have regarded 
this as a cruel breach of faith ; and that they should 
have resented it. They had been promised rations, 
and they asked for them, and when they found they 
were not likely to be supplied, they manifested their 
discontent, after the wonted fashion, by breaking out Ych. 19 
on parade. When the word of command was given for 1844. 
them to march to their Lines, by fours from the left, 
they stood fast. The word was repeated, but still 
they stood fast ; and when the Adjutant rode up to 
the leading section and asked the men if they had not 
heard the word of command, they answered sullenly 
that they had heard it; and when a Native officer 
asked them why they did not move, they told him 
that they wanted food, and that they would not stir 
without it. 

When the order to advance was again given, the 
regiment moved off; but only to renew on the fol- 
lowing morning the exhibition of disobedience and 
discontent. Paraded before the General commanding 
the garrison, the regiment soon evinced signs of being 
in the same mood. After inspection, when the order 
was given to march by companies to their respective 
Lines, the Grenadiers stepped ofi^, but presently wavered 
and halted ; and when their captain, having ordered 
their arms, went off to report their conduct to the 
commanding officer, they insisted on following him in 
a body, declaring that if they then lost their chance 
of representing their hard case to the General, thev 



296 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

U44.. might never find it again. Another company was 
even more violent in its demands. When the word of 
command was given to advance at the quick march, 
a man from the ranks cried out, " Right about face," 
and the whole company stood fast, as did other parts 
of the column. Taken in the act of flagrant mutiny, 
the Sepoy was disarmed, and sent to the guard, 
whither the greater part of the company followed, 
declaring that they also would go to the guard, that 
they wanted rice, and must have it. 

After a while order was restored. The General 
addressed the European and Native officers, and told 
them to assure the men, that any complaints advanced 
in a soldierly manner would be inquired into and any 
grievances redressed, but that such conduct as had 
been displayed on parade could not be overlooked. The 
regiment was then moved off to its Lines, some of the 
ringleaders being carried off as prisoners ; and an ad- 
vance of money, at first reluctantly received, stifled 
the further progress of mutiny. Here, then, the story 
may end. The Madras Army was not destined to 
supply the want accruing from the defective loyalty 
of Bengal. It broke down at a critical time ; but 
only under such a weight of mismanagement as might 
have crushed out the fidelity of the best mercenaries 
in the world. 

In these, as in instances above cited, by conflicts of 
authority and variations of system, the Sepoy was 
not unreasonably alarmed for the integrity of his pay ; 
and although w^e may condemn the manner in which 
he manifested his discontent, we must not think too 
harshly of the tenacity with which he asserted his 
rights. If an English soldier strikes for more pay, it is 
in most cases only another name for more drink. He 
seeks it, too often, as a means of personal indulgence. 



DISBANDMENT. 297 

There is nothing to render less greedy his greed. But ^814. 
the avarice of the Sepoy was purified by domestic 
affection, by a tender regard for the interests of others, 
and that strong feeling of family honour which in 
India renders Poor Laws an useless institution. He 
had so many dependents with whom to divide his 
slender earnings, that any unexpected diminution of 
his pay excited alarm lest those who were nearest and 
dearest to him should in his absence be reduced to 
want. The honour of his family was threatened ; 
he chafed under the thought; and if he took un- 
soldierly means of asserting his rights, we must re- 
member the provocation, and not forget those pecu- 
liarities of national sentiment which lighten the dark 
colours in which all such resistance of authority pre- 
sents itself to European eyes. 

Eventually Bombay troops were sent to garrison Penal Mea 
Scinde, and the province became a part of the Bombay 
Presidency. But it is hard to say how much these 
first abortive attempts to provide for its defence shook 
the discipline of the Sepoy Army. For the evil was 
one to which it was difficult to apply a remedy ; and 
the authorities were greatly perplexed and at variance 
one with another. The disbandment of a mutinous 
regiment is, in such a case, the most obvious, as it is 
the easiest measure, to which Government can resort ; 
but it may often be unjust in itself and dangerous in 
its results. It falls alike on the innocent and on the 
guilty. It fills the country mth the materials of 
which rebellions are made, or sends hundreds of our 
best fighting-men, with all the lessons we have taught 
them, into the enemy's ranks. To be efi*ective, it 
should follow closely on the commission of the crime 
which it is intended to punish ; but it can rarely bo 
accomplished with this essential promptitude, for it is 



298 THE SEPOY ARLIY — ITS DECLINE. 

\Hi. only under certain favouring circumstances that an 
order to reduce to penury and disgrace a thousand 
trained soldiers can be carried out with safety to the 
State. To delay the execution of the punishment is 
outwardly to condone the offence. It was not strange, 
therefore, that when the Thirty-fourth Infantry and 
the Seventh Cavalry of Bengal mutinied on the 
frontier, almost in the presence of the Sikh Army, 
there should have been obstinate questionings at Head- 
Quarters as to the expediency of disbandment on the 
spot, or at some safer place remote from the scene of 
their crimes. It was the opinion of Lord Ellen- 
borough, at the time, that a regiment of Europeans 
and a troop of European artillery should have been 
summoned with all haste from Loodhianah to Feroze- 
pore, and that, in presence of this force, the mutinous 
corps should have been at once disbanded. But a 
reference, it has been said, was made to Government, 
and the mutinous regiments were marched down, 
unsentenced, to Loodhianah and Meerut, there to 
await the decision of supreme authority. The orders 
given left some discretion with the Commander-in- 
Chief. The Seventh Cavalry had not mutinied in a 
body. The Native officers and nearly two hundred 
troopers were true to their Salt. Discipline might, 
therefore, be vindicated by ordinary processes of law 
without involving the innocent and the guilty alike 
in one common ruin. But the Thirty-fourth, Native 
officers and Sepoys, Avere all tainted ; so, with every 
mark of infamy, in the presence of all the troops, 
European and Native, at Meerut, the regiment was 
broken up, the British uniform was stripped from the 
backs of the mutineers, and the number of the regi- 
ment was erased from the Army List.* 

* Two or three years afterwards of a new regiment, in no degree 
the gap was filled up by the raising better than the old. 



DISBANDMENT. 299 

Propinquity to an overawing European force re- 184*« 
moves the chief difficulties which oppose themselves 
to the sudden dissolution of a Native regiment. But 
under no other circumstances is it to be counselled. 
The question of disbandment, therefore, perplexed the 
Madras authorities even more than those of Bengal. 
To march a regiment, with arms in its hands, some 
hundreds of miles across the country, to receive its 
services, and perhaps to witness its repentance during 
a period of many weeks, all that time concealing the 
fate that is in store for it, and then having caged it in 
a safe place, pinioned it, as it were, beyond all hope 
of resistance, to visit it with all the terrors of a long- 
hidden, long-delayed retribution, is altogether ab- 
horrent to the generous nature of an English officer. 
To have disbanded, for example, the Sixth Madras 
Cavalry at Jubbulpore would have been cruel and 
dangerous. To have marched it to Arcot in igno- 
rance of its fate, would have been cruel and dastardly. 
To have broken it up at Kamptee would have been 
to incur, only in a less degree, the evil of both 
courses. And nothing else appeared possible; for 
it was not to be supposed that all those indignant 
Mahomedans, men with whom revenge is a virtue, 
would have quietly gone down, mounted on good 
horses, and with sharpened sabres at their sides, in 
full knowledge of their destiny, to the disgraceful 
punishment awaiting them. With these considera- 
tions before them, it was not strange that the Madras 
authorities hesitated to carry out the comprehensive 
penalty of disbandment, and that, as a choice of dif- 
ficulties, it should have suffered many guilty men to 
escape. 

In this instance, Lord EUenborough was eager for 
disbandment. He said that the conduct of the regi- 
ment had been equally bad in itself and pernicious in 



300 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1844. its results, for that the disturbed state of Bundelkund 
rendered it little short of mutiny before the enemy, 
and it had disconcerted all the arrangements of his 
Government for the general defence of the country. 
But it was not his, either on principle or in practice, 
to deal harshly with the errors and delusions of the 
Native Army, and there were few men living who 
had a more kindly appreciation of the good qualities 
of the Sepoy, or who could more readily sympathise 
with him. If he did not know precisely how to deal 
with a mutiny of that Army ; if he could not, with 
accurate calculation of the results, so apportion the 
just measures of leniency and severity as in no case to 
encourage by the one or to exasperate by the other, 
he only failed where no one had yet succeeded, and 
need not have blushed to find himself mortal. He 
often said that a general mutiny of the Native Army 
was the only real danger with which our empire in 
India was threatened ; and he believed that the surest 
means of maintaining the fidelity of the Sepoy was by 
continually feeding his passion for military glory. In 
this he was right. But the passion for military glory 
cannot always be fed without injustice, and the evils 
of conquest may be greater than its gains. He had 
much faith, too, in the good efi*ect of stirring ad- 
dresses, appealing to the imaginations of the soldiery, 
and in the application of donatives promptly follow- 
ing good service. And, although in working out his 
theory he was sometimes impelled to practical ex- 
pressions of it, which caused people to smile, as in 
the famous Somnauth Proclamation, and in the dis- 
S oreetmeats. tribution of the "favourite mehtoys' to the Sepoys 
after the battle of Maharajpore, there was, doubtless, 
sound philosophy at the bottom of it. But such light 
as this only served to show more clearly the many 



DIFFICULTIES CF GOVERNIVIENT. 301 

and great difficulties with wliicli the whole question 1S44. 
of the Sepoy Army was beset, and to convince re- 
flecting minds that, though human folly might ac- 
celerate the break-down of the whole system, human 
wisdom could not so fence it around with safeguards 
as to give it permanent vitality and strength. 

That the treatment to which the mutinies arisine: 
out of the annexation of Scinde were subjected by the 
Government of the day was nothing more than a 
series of expedients is a fact, but one which may be 
recorded without censure. The disbandment of one 
regiment, the punishment of a few ringleaders in 
others, the forgiveness of the rest ; the dismissal of an 
officer or two for culpable mismanagement, and a 
liberal issue of donatives to all who during the pre- 
ceding year had either done well, or suffered much, in 
the service of the State, were so many palliatives, born 
of the moment, which did not touch the seat of the 
disease, or contribute to the future healthy action of 
the system. But there Avere circumstances, both 
intrinsic and extrinsic, which seemed to forbid, on 
grounds alike of justice and of policy, the application 
of more vigorous remedies. The fact, indeed, that 
the misconduct of the soldiery had, in a great measure, 
been the direct growth of the injuries which they had 
sustained at the hands of the Government, would 
have made severity a crime. But it was no less cer- 
tain that leniency was a blunder. If an Army once 
finds that it can dictate to Government the amount 
of its pay, there is an end to the controlling power of 
the latter. What the State ought to have learnt from 
this lesson was the paramount obligation which rested 
upon it of clearly explaining to its troops all regula- 
tions affecting their pay and allowances, and espe- 
cially such as entailed upon them any loss of privileges 



?l-2 THE SEPOY AmiY — ITS DECLINE. 

1544;. antecedently enjoyed. Under any circumstances a 
reduction of pay is a delicate and hazardous opera- 
tion. Even the loyalty of European officers is not 
always proof against such a trial. But the absence of 
explanation aggravates it, in the Sepoy's eyes, into a 
breach of faith ; he believes that he is only asserting 
his rights when he strikes for the restoration of that 
of which he has been, in his own eyes unjustly, de- 
prived ; and the Government then, perplexed in the 
extreme, has only a choice of evib before it, and either 
on the side of leniency or severity is too likely to go 
lamentably wronc;. 



THE SIKH TTAE. 3"')S 



CHAPTER IV. 

THB WAR ON THE SUTLEJ— THE PATNA CONSPIBACT — ATTEMPT TO COU 
EUPT THE SEPOYS AT DINAPORE— THE OCCUPAIION OF THE PUNJajj— 
ANNEXATION AND ITS EEFECTS — KEDUCTION 07 THE SEPOY's PAY — THE 
MUTINIES AT RAWTJL PINDEE AND GOVINDGHUE — LOED DALHOUSIE AND 
Sm CHABIiES NAPLEfi. 

It was fortunate, perliaps, for tlie rulers of that day 1845. 
tliat Peace was but of short duration, and that the 
" passion for military glory" had again something to 
feed upon. The Sikh Army, having risen against its 
own leaders, was vapouring on the banks of the Sutlej, 
and threatening to cross the British frontier. No 
war could have been more welcome to the Sepoy than 
a war with the Sikhs. For they were an insolent and 
minacious race, and it was known that they had 
talked of overrunning Hindostan, and pouring on to 
the sack of Delhi and the pillage of Calcutta. They 
took the first step, and the war commenced. 

Whilst the Governor- General and the Commander- The Patna 
in-Chief were at the head of the Army on the frontier, Conspiracy. 
and all eyes were turned towards the scene of that 
sanguinary conflict on the Sutlej, lower down, on the 
banks of the Ganges, four hundred miles from Cal- 
cutta, an incident was occurring, which, in quiet 
times, might have made itself heard all over the 
country, but which, lost in the din of battle in that 



304 THE SEPOr ARMY — ITS DECLINE, 

.1845-46. momentous winter, gave only a local soun-l. Dis 
coverj was made of an organised attempt to corrupt 
the soldiery in the Lower Provinces. On Christmas 
eve the magistrate of Patna received a letter from 
Major Rowcroftj informing him that the Moonshee 
of his regiment — the First Native Infantry — was in 
treasonable correspondence with a rich and influ- 
ential landholder in the neighbourhood, who had 
been tampering with the allegiance of the Native 
officers and Sepoys in the contiguous station of 
Dinapore. 

Of the truth of the story there was no doubt. To 
what dimensions the conspiracy really extended, and 
from what central point it radiated, is not knoA\m, 
and now never will be known. It was a season of 
considerable popular excitement, aggravated in the 
neighbourhood of Patna by local causes, and eager 
efforts had been made to prepare the people for 
revolt. Reports had been for some time current to 
the eifect that the British Government purposed to 
destroy the caste of the Hindoos, and to abolish 
^lahomedanism by forbidding the initial ceremony 
through which admission is obtained to the number 
of the Faithful. And to this was added another lie, 
scarcely less alarming, that the Purdah was also to 
be prohibited, and that Mahomedan females of all 
ranks were to be compelled to go about unveiled. 
Stories of this kind, it has been observed, however 
monstrous in themselves, are readily believed, if 
there be but only a very little truth to give tliem 
currency. The truth may be from within or it may 
be from without. It may be direct proof or indirect 
confirmation. It little matters so long as there is 
something which men may see and judge for thei/i- 
selves. There had been many exciting causes at this 



EXCITOIENT AT PATNA. 305 

dine, to rouse tlie resentments and to stimulate the 1845-4'' 
activities of the Moulavees and the Pundits, such a3 
the new law of inheritance and the new educational 
measures ; and now the introduction of the messing- 
system into the gaols was a patent fact which all 
might understand. It was an incident, moreover, of 
untoward occurrence, that about this time, when de- 
signing men were eagerly looking out for some false 
move on the part of the Government, the Magistrate 
of Patna, at the request of the Principal of the 
College, alarmed the inhabitants of the city by insti- 
tuting inquiries enabling him to form something of 
a census of the population, showing their different 
castes, professions, and employments — a movement 
which was at once declared to be a part of the great 
scheme of the Government for the forcible conversion 
of the people. 

But it was necessary that the soldiery should be 
gained over by some alarming fiction of especial ap- 
plication to the Sepoy himself. Already had indirect 
agency been set at Avork for his corruption. He 
found the lie in full leaf in his native village. When 
he went on furlough, his relatives told liim that if he 
did not make a stand for his religion he would soon 
have to fight against his brethren and kinsmen.* 
When he returned to his regiment he found that 
every one was talking on the same subject, and that 
it was currently believed that the introduction of the 
messing-system into the gaols was to be followed by 
its introduction into the Army, and that the Sepoy 
was not much longer to be allowed to have uncon- 
trolled dominion over his own cooking-pot. 

* Some of tlie men of the "First but if you will not listen to us, we 

Regiment told Major Rowcrofi: that will send 2000 juwans (young men) 

the villagers had said, " Our village to oppose you.'^ 
furnishes 500 men to your Army; 

X 



306 THE SEPOY AKMY^ — ITS DECLLXE. 

1815-lG. If, then, there had been nothing more than this, 
the time would have been propitious, and plotters 
might reasonably have thought that the opportunity 
Avas ripe. But in that winter of 1845-46 a seditious 
enterprise of this kind in the Lower Provinces was 
favoured by the circumstances of the great war with 
the Sikhs, which was drawing all the resources of the 
Government to the North- Western frontier. There 
was a vague belief that lakhs of Punjabee fighting- 
men would soon be streaming over the country, and 
that the English would be driven into the sea. Many, 
then, with eager cupidity, bethought themselves of 
gutting the opium godowns of Patna, where a million 
and a half of Government property lay stored ; and 
all the dangerous classes of the city v/ere ripe and 
ready for pillage and for slaughter. A rising of the 
Sepoys at such a time, or their acquiescence in a 
rising of the people, might have been fatal to the 
continued supremacy of Government in that part of 
the country. The plotters scarcely hoped to accom- 
plish more than the latter of these two means of 
overthrowing the English. At all events, it was safer 
to begin with the milder experiment on the fidelity 
of the Sepoy. So delegates went about in the Lines 
saying that the great King of Delhi had sent a con- 
fidential agent to give a month's pay to every Native 
officer and soldier in the regiments in order that if 
any outbreak should occur in their part of the coun- 
try they should not lift a hand in support of the 
Government. All the landholders, and the culti- 
vators, and the townspeople were ready, it was said, 
to rise; and if the soldiery would only remain in- 
active, the British power might be destroyed before it 
could perpetrate the outrages by which it sought to 
overturn the religions of the country. 



CONSPIRACY DETECTED. 307 

A Jemadar of the First Regiment Keard tins story, 184546 
gravely listened to all that was urged by the emissary 
of sedition, and said that he would consider of the 
matter.* Then he repeated all that had happened 
to his commanding officer, and measures were soon 
taken to test the reality of the plot. There was at 
all events one substantial proof that the story was no 
fiction. There was money counted out for the work of 
corruption, and tied up in bags ready for immediate 
delivery. It was agreed that the Jemadar and another 
officer in Rowcroft's confidence should take the 
money, and matters were soon conveniently arranged 
so as to brino; about the disclosure. A detachment 
of the regiment was about to proceed to Gya ; with 
this went the two faitliful Jemadars. On the way 
they met or were overtaken by two well-dressed 
Mahomedans in an ecka, or native wheeled- carriage, 
who gave them the money, saying that others had 
taken it, and that larger supplies were forthcoming 
for the same purpose. Nothing could stamp the 
reality of the design more surely than this. Men are 
in earnest when they part with their money. 

Another Native officer of the First traitorously 
took the corrupting coin, and a Moonshee of the 
regiment was found to be deeply implicated in the 
plot. But Rowcroft's opportune discovery of the 
attempt to debauch his men, and the measures which 
he wisely adopted, rendered the further efforts of the 
conspirators utterly futile and hopeless. The military 
offenders were soon in confinement ; the civil ma- 
gistrate was tracking down the instigators of sedi- 
tion ; and if no great success then attended the attempt 

* The Jemadar was a Brahmin, the latter was adjutant of the regi- 
by name Mootee-Missur. He had ment, and was greatly attached to 
been pay-havildar to Rowcroft, when him. 

X 2 



808 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

18454G. ^o bring tlie necks of tlie most guilty to the gallows, 
it was sufficient for the public peace that the plot was 
discovered. What the amount of real danger then 
was it is difficult to determine. Two other Native 
regiments at Dinapore were tampered with in like 
manner, but the discovery of the plot in Rowcroft's 
corps rendered other efforts abortive. Many great 
names were used by the agents of sedition, but upon 
what authority can only be conjectured. It was 
stated that a royal mandate had come from the King 
of Delhi ; that the Rajah of Nepaul w^as ready to 
send a great army sweeping down to the plains ; and 
again it was said that the Sikhs were the prime 
movers of the plot.* All this can be only obscurely 
shadowed on the page of history. But it is certain 
that a scroll was found, described by a witness as 
being many cubits long, on which the names of some 
hundred of respectable inhabitants of Patna, Hindoos 
and Mahomedans, were attached to a solemn decla- 
ration binding them to die in defence of their reli- 
gion, and that it was honestly believed by large 
numbers of the educated no less than the ignorant 
people of that part of the country, that the one 
cherished object of the British Government was to 
reduce all the people of India to the no-caste state of 
the Feringhees. Of the reality of this belief there 
was no doubt ; so a Proclamation was put forth by 
the Governor of Bengal, declaring that as the Bri- 
tish Government never had interfered, so the people 

* The principal actor in the Patna fear of religious conversion, and en- 
conspiracy was one Khojali Hassan couraging their determination to re- 
Ali Khan. It seems that at the sist. He escaped for want of evi- 
Sonepore Fair, a short time before, dence. There was also a wandering 
he had appeared in great state, and bookseller, who, on the plea of sell- 
received a considerable number of ingPersian volumes tothcMooubhees 
influential people in his tent, with of regiments, readily gained access 
the object of instilling into them a to them without exciting suspicion. 



CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB. 309 

might be assured that it never would interfere in any 1S45-45. 
way with the religions of the country. 

The Jemadar and the Moonshee of the First Regi- 
ment, who had been seduced into traitorous courses, 
were tried by court-martial, and sentenced to death, 
with the usual reluctance manifested by a tribunal 
composed only of Native officers.* But it was not 
necessary to strike terror into the minds of an arm}^ 
hovering on the brink of general mutiny ; so the sen- 
tence was not carried out. Whatever danger there 
may have been had passed away.f The victories of 
Hardinge and Gough had a grand moral effect from 
one end of the country to the other, for it had been 
believed that the British were sore pressed, and that 
their power would be shaken to the centre by this 
collision with the Sikhs. Victory made all things 
rio;lit ao^ain, and for a while we heard nothino; more 
of mutiny or sedition. With intervals of comparative 
repose, distinguished by an occupation of the Sikh 
country, very flattering to the Sepoy's pride, and very 
profitable to his purse, the operations which resulted 
in the fall of the Sikh empire then lasted for more 
than three years. The story has been told in the first 
chapter of this work. The Punjab, like Scinde, was 
turned by a stroke of the pen into a British province, 
and the same difficulties bristled up in the path of 

* Not long after the discovery of f It is stated in an interesting 

this plot, Major E-owcroft was seized pamphlet, published by Mr. Stocque- 

witli severe illness, not witliout sus- ler, in 1857, that it was said at Dina- 

picion of poison, and obliged to pro- pore, after the discovery of this con- 

ceed to England. Jemadar Mootee- spiracy, that although theEnglish had 

Missur told him that on his return to ihenescaped, there would be, in 1857, 

India, he would, doubtless, be able to when they had ruled a hundred years, 

lay before the Major furtlier facts il- such a tomasha as the country liad 

lustrativeof the extent of the conspi- never seen. I can find no trace of 

racy. But when Rowcroft rejoined this in any contemporary documents, 

the regiment both Mootee-Missur nor have my inquiries from officers 

and the other faithful Jemadar were who were then at Dinapore enabled 

dead. me to confirm the trutli of the story. 



310 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1S15-1G. the Annexer. The Sepoy, called to serve in the 
Punjab, had no longer the privileges of foreign ser- 
vice ; and, in spite of the lesson taught by the Scinde 
annexation, be could not understand why the con- 
quest of the country should be inaugurated by the 
reduction of his pay. 

Mutiny in ihe And SO the regiments in the Punjab at that time, 
TsiO 50 ^^^ those which were moved across the Sutlej from 
our older provinces, determined to refuse the reduced 
rates, and to stand out boldly for the higher allow- 
ances. All the regiments, suffering or soon to suffer 
from the incidence of the reduction, took counsel with 
each other, and promised mutual support. Delegates 
from the several corps went about from station to 
station, and letters were exchanged between those at 
a distance. The first manifestation of open discontent 
was at Rawul Pindee. There, one morning in July, 
Sir Colin Campbell, a soldier of the highest promise, 
already budding into fame — the " Avar-bred Sir Colin," 
as Napier then called him — received the significant 

July, 1819. intelligence that the Twenty-second Regiment had re- 
fused to receive their pay. Outwardly, the Sepoys 
were calm and respectful; but their calmness indi- 
cated a sense of strength, and Campbell felt that all 
the other Native regiments in the Punjab would pro- 
bably follow their example. Such a combination at 
any time and in any place would have been dan- 
gerous and alarming ; but the peril was greatly aggra- 
vated by the peculiar circumstances of the times. For 
it had grown up in a newly-conquered country, 
swarming with the disbanded fighting-men of the old 
Sikh Army, and it was believed that our discontented 
Sepoys, if they had once broken into rebellion, would 
have soon found their ranks swollen by recruits from 
the Kalsa soldiery, eager to profit by the crisis, and 



MUTINY IN THE PUNJAB. 311 

again to strike for tlie recovery of their lost dominion. 1849 
We had just seen the downfal of an empire precipi- 
tated by the lawlessness of an army, driven onward 
by the impulses of its greed ; and now it seemed as 
though our own soldiery, having caught the con- 
tagion, were clamouring for donatives, and that it re- 
quired very careful steering to save us from being 
wrecked upon the same rock. 

Sir Charles Napier had, at that time, just appeared 
upon the stage. He had hastened from Calcutta to 
Simlah to meet the Governor- General, who was re- 
freshing himself with the cool mountain air ; and 
there the news reached him, not that one, but that 
two regiments at Rawul Pindee had refused to take 
their pay, and that there was every prospect of four 
more regiments at Wuzeerabad, and two at the inter- 
mediate station of Jhelum, following their example. 
Then Dalhousie and Napier took counsel together, 
with some of their staff-officers, and it was debated 
whether it w^ould not be wise to strike a vigorous blow 
at the incipient mutiny by disbanding the regiments 
which had already refused to accept their pay. To 
this course, proposed by Colonel Benson, an old officer 
of the Company's service, held in deserved regard by 
many successive Governors- General, Napier resolutely 
objected, and Dalhousie concurred with the Chief. 
Hoping for the best, but still prepared for the worst, 
the old soldier instructed Campbell to point out to the 
recusant regiments the folly and wickedness of their 
course ; but he wrote privately to him that in the 
event of their obduracy, he and other commanding 
officers must bring the power of the European regi- 
ments in the Punjab to bear upon the coercion of the 
mutinous Sepoys. But before these letters arrived, 
Campbell had tided over the difficulty. " The com- 



312 THE SEPOY ARm'— ITS DECLINE. 

1310. binatlon amongst the men of the Thirteen tli and 
Twenty-second Regiments," he wrote to Napier, on 
the 26th of July, " gave way to fear on the 18th, the 
day before your prescription for bringing them to 
their senses was despatched from Simlah." The fact 
is that, at that time, they were not ready ; they were 
not strong enough for the resistance of authority ; 
and they were not prepared to be the protomartyrs in 
such a cause. There was a European regiment at 
Rawul Pindee ; there were European regiments at 
other stations not far removed ; and so it was held to 
be a wiser course to wait until the new regiments 
should arrive from the older provinces and unite with 
them in the dangerous work of military rebellion. 

That these regiments were prepared to resist was 
soon too apparent. From Simlah, Napier proceeded 
on a tour of inspection to the principal military 
stations in the Northern Provinces of India ; and at 
Delhi he found unmistakable signs of a confederation 
of many regiments determined not to serve in the 
Punjab except on the higher pay. One regiment 
there, warned for service beyond the Sutlej, declared 
its intention not to march ; but it was conciliated by 
a liberal grant of furloughs, which had before been 
withheld ; and it went on to its destination. Napier 
believed that the spirit of disaffection was wide-spread. 
He had heard ominous reports of twenty-four regi- 
ments prepared to strike, and when he entered the 
Punjab, he was not surprised to find that mutiny was 
there only in a state of suspended activity, and that 
at any moment it might burst out, all the more 
furiously for this temporary suppression. 

At Wuzeerabad it soon openly manifested itself. In 
command of that station was one of the best soldiers 
of the Company's service. At an early age John 



COLONEL IIEARSEY. 313 

Hearsey had earned a name in History, as one of the 1849. 
heroes of Seetabuldee, and thirty years of subsequent 
service had thoroughly ripened his experience, so that 
at this time he had perhaps as large a knowledge of 
the Sepoy, of his temper, of his habits, of his language, 
as any officer in the Native Army. With this large 
knowledge dwelt also in him a large sympathy. It 
commonly happened in those days that the man who 
best knew the Sepoy best loved him ; and Hearsey, 
who had seen how good a soldier he could be, before 
the enemy, respected his good qualities, and looked 
leniently on his bad. He believed that, with good 
management, a Sepoy regiment might be kept, under 
almost any circumstances, in the right temper, and he 
had great faith in the magic efficacy of a good speech. 
When, therefore, one of the regiments at Wuzeerabad 
openly refused its pay, Hearsey drew up the men on 
parade, and addressed them in language so touching, 
so forcible, and so much to the point, that many hung 
down their heads, ashamed of what they had done, 
and some even shed tears of penitence. The pay v/as 
then offered to them again. The first four men who 
refused v/ere tried at once, and sentenced to imprison- 
ment with hard labour. The whole brigade was then 
turned out to see the sentence carried into effect 
There were four Native regiments at Wuzeerabad ; 
but there was also a Regiment of the Line and de- 
tachments of European Artillery, Horse and Foot. In 
the presence of this force, the convicted Sepoys were 
manacled as felons and sent off to work on the roads. 
After this, there were no more refusals ; the men took 
their pay and did their work. 

But discipline had not yet been fully vindicated. 
Three ringleaders, who had been known to go from 
company to company, instio:atin^ and fomenting re- 



314 THE SEPOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE 

18i9. bellioUj were tried by court-martial, and sentenced to 
fourteen years' imprisonment. But Napier, who re- 
garded in a far stronger light both the enormity of 
the offence and the magnitude of the danger, ordered 
a revision of the sentence, and death was recorded 
against the culprits ; and against two others who 
Avere tried for the same oifence by the same Court.* 
Then justice was satisfied, and mercy might stretch 
forth its hand. The sentence was commuted to trans- 
January 25, portation for life. " In eternal exile," said Napier, in 

1850. his general order to the troops, ^' they will expiate 
their crimes. For ever separated from their country 
and their relations, in a strange land beyond the seas, 
they will linger out their miserable lives. It is a 
change, but I do not consider it an amelioration of 
their punishment. They will remain living examples 
of the miserable fate which awaits traitors to their 
colours." 

But the spirit of disaffection was not suppressed, 
though locally for a time it was subdued. It was de- 
clared that the Post-ofhce runners laboured under 
the weight of the Sepoys' letters, which were then 
passing from cantonment to cantonment ; but a large 
number of these letters were seized and examined, 
and they were found to contain nothing on the sub- 
ject of the allowances.! Napier, however, anticipated 
a crisis, and was prepared for it. Taking post at 
Peshawur, the extremest corner of our new Punjab 
territory, where Avas a strong European force, he be- 
lieved that he would ere long be compelled to sweep 
down with the English regiments, picking up rein- 
forcements as he went from station to station, and to 

* ISir Charles Napier, in his In- f Sir Henry Lawrence, in Cal- 

dian Misj^overnment, says tliat four cuita JReview, vol. xxii. The state- 

Avere tried at first, and one alter- ment is made on the authority of 

M'ards ; but tlie fact is as stated in Major W. Mayne, President of the 

the text. Govindgliur Court of Enquiry. 



MUTINY OF THE SIXTY-SIXTH. 315 

crusn a general rising of tlie Sepoy troops. And soon 1850. 
it appeared to him that the crisis had come. The 
Sixty-sixth Regiment broke into mutiny at Govind- 
ghur. Bursting out, on parade, with vehement shouts 
of disapprobation, they attempted to seize the gates 
of the Fort, so as to cut off all communication with 
the loyal troops outside the walls. There was no 
European regiment at Govindghur, but the First 
Native Cavalry, under Bradford, were faithful among 
the faithless, and, aided by the cool courage of Mac- 
donald, of the Sixty-sixth, they made good their en- 
trance through the gate.* The Fort was saved. The 
European officers were saved. And the guilty regi- 
ment was doomed to a moral death. The Sixty-sixth 
was struck out of the Army List. The men were dis- 
banded in a body, and their colours given to a corps 
of Goorkhas, from the hill- tracts of Nepaul, who were 
known to be good soldiers, with no Brahminical 
daintiness about them, and a general fidelity to their 
Salt. 

"When the Sixty-sixth was disbanded," says Sir 
Charles Napier, " the mutiny ceased entirely. Why? 
The Brahmins saw that the Goorkhas, another race, 
could be brought into the ranks of the Company's 
Army — a race dreaded, as more warlike than their 
own. Their religious combination was by that one 
stroke rendered abortive." But, far other causes 
than this helped to subdue the spirit of disaffection 
which was then ripening in the Punjab. The Sepoys 
had struck for higher allowances than those which 
had been granted to them by the strict letter of the 
Regulations; but Napier thought, that however un- 
soldierly, however culpable their conduct might be, 

* All opportune blow from Mac- stalenient published by Sir H. Law* 
donald's sword appears to have reuce in Calcutta Review, vol. xxii. 
caused the gate to be opened. See 



316 



THE SEPOY ARMY— ITS DECLINE. 



ISoO. 



DcilhoTisIe 
and Napier. 



some grounds of dissatisfaction existed. The change, 
which the Sepoys resented, was declared by the Chies" 
to be " impolitic and unjust ;" and, pending a reference 
to Government, orders were issued for the payment 
of compensation to the troops, on a higher scale than 
that sanctioned by the latest regulations.* 

Then arose that memorable conflict between Xapier 
and Dalhousie, which ended in the resignation by the 
former of an office Avhich many had predicted that 
he could not long continue to hold. Both were men 
of imperious temper, and a collision between them 
was, from the first, clearly foreseen. When the Mili- 
tar}^ Chief took upon himself to readjust the al- 
lowances of the troops in the Punjab, the Civil Go- 



* Tlie bare statement in the text 
■will suffice for the general reader, 
but not", pcrhap?, for the professional 
one. It may be stated, therefore, 
that it had been for many years the 
rule of the Indian Government, when- 
ever the prices of the common arti- 
cles of consumption used by the Na- 
tive soldiery exceeded a certain fixed 
price, to grant them compensation 
proportionate to the additional cost of 
supplies. This bounty seems first to 
have been bestowed in the year 1821 
on the Native troops serving in the 
Western Provinces, and was limited 
to the single article of ottali, or flour. 
Whenever ottali was selling at less 
tiian fifteeu seers (or thirty pounds) 
the rupee, a proportionate compen- 
sation was granted. But, subse- 
quently, in 1844, the application of 
this order was extended by Lord 
Ellenborough, and compensation also 
was granted to the Native troops 
serving in Scinde, when certain minor 
articles of consumption were selling 
at a high price. In the following 
year a new order relative to this 
same subject of compensation-money 
was issued by Lord llardinge, who 
liad by this time succeeded to the 
government. Instead of granting 



a separate money-compensation for 
each particular liigh-priced article of 
consumption, all the several articles 
were massed, and some being cheaper 
than elsewhere, a general average 
was struck. It was then officially 
announced that thenceforth compen- 
sation would be granted to the Se- 
poys " whenever the price of pio- 
visions, forming the Native soldier's 
diet, should exceed 3 rupees and 8 
annas, the aggregate of the rates 
for the several articles laid down in 
the General Orders of the 26th of 
February, 1844." Whenever, in 
other words, the Sepoy was unable 
to obtain his daily rations at a cost 
of 3 rupees 8 annas a month (which 
cost was calculated in accordance 
with the aggregate fixed rates of 
the prices of provisions, beyond 
which compensation, under the old 
regulations, was granted for each 
article), the excess was to be de- 
frayed by the Government. The 
regulation of 1845 was not so favour- 
able to the troops as that of 1814, 
and Sir Charles Napier, believing 
that the application of the former 
rule to the troops in the Punjab was a 
mistake, directed the regulation of 
1844 again to be brought into force, 



DALHOUSIE AND NAPIER. 317 

vera or was at sea beyond the reacli of an official 1850. 
reference. He returned to find Avhat had been done, 
and he resented such an encroachment upon the pre- 
rogative of the Government. Napier had justified 
the exercise of an authority not constitutionally 
belonging to his office, by the assertion that the 
danger was pressing, and that action, in such an 
emergency, did not admit delay. Dalhousie denied 
the premises ; he insisted that there had been no 
danger. " I cannot sufficiently express,'' he wrote, in 
an elaborate Minute on Napier's proceedings, "the 
astonishment with which I read, on the 26th of May, 
the intimation then made to the Government by the 
Commander-in-Chief, that in the month of January 
last a mutinous spirit pervaded the army in the 
Punjab, and that insubordination had risen so high 
and spread so wide, as to impress his Excellency with 
the belief that the Government of the country was 
placed at that time in a position of ' great peril.' I 
have carefully weighed the statements which his Ex- 
cellency has advanced. I have examined ancAV the 
records that bear on the state of public affairs at that 
period, and I have well reflected upon all that has 
passed. While I do not seek to question in any way 
the sincerity of the convictions by which Sir Charles 
Napier has been led to declare that the army was in 
mutiny and the empire in danger, I, on my part, am 
bound to say that my examination and reflection have 
not lessened in any degree the incredulity with which 
I first read the statements to which I have referred." 
"There is no justification," continued his Lordship, 
" for the cry that India was in danger. Free from all 
threat of hostilities from without, and secure, through 
the submission of its new subjects, from insurrection 
within, the safety of India has never for one moment 



318 THE SEroY AraiY -its decline. 

1850. been imperilled by the partial insubordination in the 
ranks of its army. I have confronted the assertions 
of the Commander-in-Chief on this head with undis- 
puted facts, and with the authority of recorded do- 
cuments, and my convictions strengthened by the 
information which the Government commands, I 
desire to record my entire dissent from the statement 
that the army has been in mutiny, and the empire in 
danger." 

This was, doubtless, the popular view of the matter ; 
and it was readily accepted at the time. What 
amount of danger really existed was never known, 
and now never will be known. Whatever it may 
have been, it was tided over ; and the quietude that 
followed this temporary explosion seemed to warrant 
the confidence which the Governor- General had ex- 
pressed. But Napier held to his opinion with as 
much tenacity as Dalhousie. Nothing could shake 
the belief of the old soldier that the exceptional course 
he had adopted was justified by the exceptional cir- 
cumstances of the times. Still he knew the duty of 
obedience ; he knew that in a conflict between two 
authorities the lower must yield to the higher, and 
that he had no right to complain if the latter asserted 
the power vested in him by the Law. " And I do not 
complain," he emphatically added. But, strong in 
his conviction of right, and master of himself, though 
not of the situation, he felt that ho could retire with 
dignity from a position which he could not hold with 
profit to the State. And he did retire. On the 22nd 
of May, he addressed a letter to the Horse- Guards, 
requesting that the Duke of Wellington would obtain 
her gracious Majesty's permission for him to resign 
the chief command of the Indian Army. " And the 
more so," he added, "as being now nearly seventy 



NAPIER'S RESIGNATION. 319 

years of age — during the last ten years of which I 1850. 
have gone through considerable fatigue of body and 
mind, especially during the last year — my healtli 
requires that relief from climate and business which 
public service in India does not admit." 

But there is no blame, in such a case, to be re- 
corded against the Governor-General. When an old 
and distinguished soldier — a warrior of high repute, 
and a man of consummate ability — deliberately de- 
clares that he regards the system under which he has 
been called upon to command an army as a system at 
once faulty and dangerous ; that he conceives the 
power of the civil magistrate to be so absolute that 
the arm of the chief soldier is paralysed ; and that, so 
enervated and emasculated by restrictions imposed 
upon him by law, he cannot wield the sword with 
honour to himself or advantage to the State, and that, 
therefore, he desires to lay it down, he utters words 
which, whether he be right or wrong in his estimate 
of what ought to be the just balance between the civil 
and the military power, are honest, manly, dignified 
words, and ought everywhere to be received with 
respect. Few men had a better right than Sir Charles 
Napier to criticise an Act of Parliament. He had a 
right to think that the law was a bad law ; and he had 
a right to say that it was bad. But the law, whether 
good or bad, was not made by Lord Dalhousie, but 
by the British Parliament. It was Dalhousie's busi- 
ness to administer that law, and to maintain the au- 
thority vested in him by the Imperial Legislature. Of 
this Napier had no right to complain ; and he declared 
that he did not complain. But the contest was on 
every account an unseemly and an unfortunate one. 
It was another and a culminating instance of that 
excessive centralisation which weakened the authority 



320 THE SErOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1850 and degraded the character of the military arm, and 
taught the soldiery that the greatest chief whom Eng- 
land could send them Avas as much a subaltern of the 
civil governor as the youngest ensign on the Army 
List. 

And it taught even more than this. It taught 
thinking men, not for the first time, that even the 
chief members of the Government were at war among 
themselves, and the lesson shook their faith in the 
stability of a power thus disunited, thus incoherent. 
" I am now sixty years of age," wrote an intelligent 
native official to Sir George Clerk. " I have heard 
three sayings repeated by wise men, and I myself 
have also found out, from my own experience, that 
the sovereignty of the British Government will not 
be overthrown save by the occurrence of three ob- 
jectionable circumstances." And the first of these 
circumstances he thus stated : " Formerlv the hio^h, 
dignified Sahibs had no enmity among themselves, or 
at least the people of India never came to know that 
they had enmity. Now enmity exists among them, 
and it is as well seen as the sun at noonday that they 
calumniate and bear malice against each other."* 
Such conflicts of authority are keenly watched and 
volubly discussed ; and a significance is attached to 
them out of all proportion to the importance with 
which amorgst us like contentions are invested. The 
natives of India know that we are few ; but they feel 
that union makes us many. Seen to be at discord 
among ourselves, we shrivel into our true propor- 
tions, and it is believed that our power is beginning 
to crumble and decay. 

During the administration of Lord Ellenborough 
(here had been disunion among the higher authorities, 
arising out of nearly similar causes. The unauthorised 

* MS. Correspondence, translated from the Persian, 



CONFLICTS or AUTHORITY. 321 

promises given by the Commander-in-Chief to the ^^^^ 
Native troops proceeding to Scinde had stirred the re- 
sentment of the Governor-General, and his grave dis- 
pleasure was excited by the zealous indiscretions of the 
Madras Government. But he had studiously veiled 
from the public eye the differences that had arisen. 
There was nothing to which he Avas more keenly 
alive than to the necessity, especially in troubled times, 
of maintaining a show of union and co-operation in the 
high places of Government. It was his hard fate at 
last to be compelled, by the hat of a higher power, to 
exhibit to the people of India, in his own person, the 
very spectacle which he had striven to conceal from 
them, and to declare, trumpet-tongued, that the Eng- 
lish were vehemently contending among themselves. 
But so long as he exercised the supreme control he 
was careful not to reveal the local dissensions of the 
Government, lest he should weaken the authority it 
was so essential to uphold ; and little even is now 
known of the strife that raged at the time, when the 
great difficulty of garrisoning Scinde was filling the 
minds of the rulers of the land. But the strife be- 
tween Dalhousie and Napier was proclaimed, almost as 
it wxre by beat of drum, in all the Lines and Bazaars 
of the country ; and all men knew that the English, 
who used so to cling to one another, that it seemed 
that they thought with one strong brain and struck 
with one strong arm, were now wasting their vigour 
by warring among themselves, and in their disunion 
ceasing to be formidable. 

This was apparent to all men's eyes ; but the Sepoy 
had his own particular lesson to learn, and did not 
neglect it. How it happened that the bitter experi- 
ence which the English Government had gained, on 
the annexation of Scinde, made no impression upon 

Y 



322 THE SErOY ARMY — ITS DECLINE. 

1S50. tlie minds of those wliose duty it was to provide 
against the recurrence of similar disasters, it is impos- 
sible to explain. All we know is, that five years after 
a misunderstanding between the Government and the 
Army with respect to the rates of pay and allowance 
to be disbursed to the Sepoy, in a newly-acquired 
country, had driven into mutiny a large number of 
Native regiments, and greatly perplexed the rulers of 
the day, a similar conjuncture arose, and there was 
a similar misunderstanding, with similar results.* The 
Sepoy had not learnt to reconcile himself to the British 
theory of Annexation, and so he resented it in the 
Punjab as he had before resented it in Scinde. In the 
latter country the excitement was far greater, and the 
danger more serious, than in the former ; but in both 
there was an outburst on the one side, and a concession 
on the other. That was given to the mutinous soldier, 
not without loss of character by Government, which 
might before have been given to the loyal one with 
befitting dignity and grace. When the emergenc}^ 
arises, it is hard to say whether there be greater evil 
in concession or in resistance. Napier thought the 

* This uncertainty with respect take advantage of difficulties, not 

to the pay and allowances of dif- an unnpire between man and man. 

fercnt branches and dillerent ranks During the last thirty years, I have 

of the Indian Army was emphatically seen much hardship on officers in 

commented upon by Sir Henry Law- matters of accounts, and of the seve- 

rence in an article bearing his name ral instances of discontent that I 

in the Calcutta Review : " Of all have witnessed in the Native Army, 

the wants of the Army, perhaps the all were more or less connected with 

greatest want is a simple pay-code, pay, and in almost every instance 

unmistakably showing the pay of the men only asked for what they 

every rank, in each branch, under all were by existing rules entitled to. 

circumstances. At present there Half a sheet of paper ought to show 

are not three officers in the Bengal every soldier his rate of pay, by sea, 

Army who could, with certainty, tell by land, on leave, on the staff, in 

what they and the people under hospital, on duty, &c. There ought 

them are entitled to in every position to be no doubt on the matter. At 

in which they are liable to be placed. })resent there is great doubt, though 

The Audit-office seldom affords help, there are volumes of Pay and Audit 

7 1 is considered an enemy ready to Eegulations." 



DISREGARDED WARNINGS. 323 

one thing, Dalhousie tliouglit the other; and each 1850. 
had strong argument on his side. But both must 
have bitterly regretted that the contingency was ever 
suiFered to arise, that no one in authority, warned 
by the lessons of the Past, had learnt to look at the 
consequences of Annexation with a Sepoy's eyes, and 
anticipated, by small concessions, the not irrational 
expectations which, at a later stage developing into 
demands, had all the force and significance of mutiny. 
Had this been done ; had the Sepoy been told that in 
consideration of increased distance from home, and 
other circumstances rendering service in Scinde and. 
the Punjab more irksome to him than in our older 
provinces, certain especial advantages would be con- 
ferred upon him — advantages which might have 
been bestowed at small cost to the State — ^he would 
have received the boon with gratitude, and ap- 
plauded the justice of his masters ; but after he 
had struck for it, he saw not their justice, but their 
fear, in the concession, and he hugged the feeling of 
power, which lessons such as these could not fail to 
engender, 



324 THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF INDU. 



CHAPTER V. 

CHAEACTEK, OF THE BENGAL SEPOY — CONFLICTING OPINIONS — CASTE— THE 
SENIORITY SYSTEM — THE OFFICERTNG OF THE ARMY — REGULAR AND 
IRREGULAR REGIMENTS— WANT OF EUROPEANS — THE CRIMEAN WAR — 
INDIAN PUBLIC OPINION— SUMMAKY OF DETERIORATING INFLUENCES. 

1S51.56. After this, there was again a season of quiet. The 
remaining years of Lord Dalhousie's administration 
passed away without any further military outbreaks 
to disturb his rooted conviction of the fidelity of the 
Sepoy. There were not wanting those who declared 
that there was an ineradicable taint in the constitu- 
tion of the Bengal Army, that it was rotten to the 
very core. But the angry controversies which arose 
— the solemn warnings on the one side, and the in- 
dignant denials on the other — proved nothing more 
than that among men, entitled to speak with authority 
on the subject, there were vast diversities of opinion. 
Much of this was attributed to class prejudices and 
professional jealousies. One voice, very loud and 
very earnest, pealing from the West, sustained for 
years a continual remonstrance against the laxities of 
the Bengal System. But Bengal resented the out- 
rage. A genuine man, above all pettiness, John 
Jacob, was declared to be the exponent only of 
small Presidential envyings and heart-burnings. The 
voice of Truth was proclaimed to be the voice of 



STATE OF THE BENGAL ARMY. 325 

Bombay. And when officers of the Bengal Army 1S51-56. 
wrote, as some did most wisely, of the evil symp- 
toms which were manifesting themselves, and of the 
dangers which appeared to be looming in the dis- 
tance, they were denounced as dehlers of their own 
nest, and as feeble-minded alarmists, to whose utter- 
ances no heed should be given. There was a general 
unwillingness to believe in the decay of discipline 
throughout one of the finest armies of the world; 
and in the absence of any outward signs of mischief, 
we willingly consented not to look beneath the surface 
for the virus of undeveloped disease. 

There is nothing that is strange, and little that is 
blamable in this. The Bengal Sepoy had evinced 
signs of a froward, petulant nature, and he had, on 
several occasions, broken out after a fashion which, 
viewed by European military eyes, is criminality of 
the deepest dye. But these aberrations were merely 
a few dark spots upon a century of good service. It > 
was not right that rare exceptions of this kind should 
cancel in our minds all the noble acts of fidelity which 
were chronicled in the history of our empire. Nor 
was it to be forgotten that, in most instances, the 
criminality of the Sepoy had been the direct growth 
of some mismanagement on the part either of the ofii- 
cers whom he followed or the Government which he 
served. To have looked with suspicion on the Sepoy, 
because from time to time some component parts of 
our Army had done that, which the Armies of every 
Native State had done, with their whole accumulated 
strength, would have been equally unwise and unjust. 
For although it might be said that the examples, 
which those Native States afibrded, ought to have 
taught us to beware of the destroying power of a 
lawless soldiery, the English were justified In be- 



326 THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF INDIA. 

1S51-56. lieving tlial there were special reasons why their own 
mercenaries should not tread in the footsteps of the 
Mahratta and Sikh Armies. They did not believe in 
the love of the Sepoy ; but they believed in his fidelity 
to his Pay. 
Tliaracter of Whilst it was natural, and indeed commendable, 
f.xe Sepoy. ^|^^^ ^j^^ remembrance of all the good service which 
the Native soldiery had done for their English masters, 
should have sustained our confidence in them as a 
body, there was nothing in the individual character 
of the Sepoy to subvert it. Even his outbreaks of 
rebellion had recently partaken more of the naughti- 
ness of the child than of the stern resolution of man- 
hood. He had evinced a disposition, indeed, rather 
to injure himself than to injure others ; and it was 
not easy for those who knew him to believe that he 
was capable of any violent and sanguinary excesses. 
His character was made up of inconsistencies, but the 
weaker and less dangerous qualities appeared to have 
the preponderance ; and though we knew that they 
made him a very difiicult person to manage, we did 
not think that they made him a dangerous one. From 
the time when, in the very infancy of the Sepoy Army, 
a Madras soldier cut dov/n Mr. Haliburton, and was 
immediately put to death by his own comrades, to the 
day when Colin Mackenzie was well-nigh butchered at 
Bolarum by troopers of his own brigade, there had 
been ever and anon some murderous incidents to dis- 
figure the Military History of our Indian Empire. * But 
outrages of this kind are common to all armies ; and 
there was no reason to regard them in any other light 
■than that of exceptional aberrations. It was not to 

* See Williams's Bengal Army section on the Sepoy Army m Suther- 
and Mackenzie's Narrative of ttie land's Sketches of the Native Statea 
Mutiny at Bolarum ; compare also of India. 



CHARACTER OF THE BENGAL SEPOY. 327 

be said tliat the Sepoy was a ruffian because he had 1S51-56. 
done some ruffianly deeds. 

He was, indeed, altogether a paradox. He was 
made up of inconsistencies and contradictions. In his 
character, qualities, so adverse as to be apparently 
irreconcilable with each other, met together and em- 
braced. He was simple and yet designing ; credulous 
and easily deceived by others, and yet obstinately 
tenacious of his own in-bred convictions ; now docile 
as a child, and now hard and immovable in the stub- 
bornness of his manhood. Abstemious and yet self- 
indulgent, calm and yet impetuous, gentle and yet 
cruel, he was indolent even to languor in his daily 
life, and yet capable of being roused to acts of the 
most desperate energy. Sometimes sportive, and 
sometimes sullen, he was easily elevated and easily 
depressed ; but he was for the most part of a cheerful 
nature, and if you came suddenly upon him in the 
Lines you were more likely to see him with a broad 
grin upon his face than with any expression of 
moroseness or discontent. But light-hearted as was 
his general temperament, he would sometimes brood 
over imaginary wrongs, and when a delusion once 
entered his soul it clung to it with the subtle male- 
volence of an ineradicable poison. 

And this, as we now understand the matter, was 
the most dangerous feature of his character. For his 
gentler, more genial qualities sparkled upon the 
surface and were readily appreciated, whilst all the 
harsher and more forbidding traits lay dark and 
disguised, and were not discernible in our ordinary 
intercourse with him. There was outwardly, indeed, 
very much to rivet the confidence of the European 
officer, and very little to disturb it. It is true that 
if we reasoned about it, it did not seem to be alto- 



328 THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF INDIA. 

1851-56. gether reasonable to expect from the Sepoy any 
strong affection for the alien officer who had usurped 
all the high places of the Army, and who kept him 
down in the dead level of the dust. But Englishmen 
never reason about their position in the midst of a 
community of strangers ; they take their popularity 
for granted, and look for homage as a thing of course. 
And that homage was yielded to the British officer, 
not for his own sake, for the Sepoy hated his colour 
and his creed, his unclean ways, and his domineering 
manners ; but because he was an embodiment of 
Success. It was one of the many inconsistencies of 
which I have spoken, that though boastful and vain- 
glorious beyond all example, the Native soldier of 
India inwardly acknowledged that he owed to the 
English officer the aliment which fed his passion for 
glory and sustained his military pride. This, indeed, 
was the link that bound class to class, and resisted 
the dissolving power of many adverse influences. It 
was this that moved the Sepoy to light up the tomb 
of his old commanding officer ; it was this that moved 
the veteran to salute the picture of the General under 
. whom he had fought. But there was a show also 
of other and gentler feelings, and there were instances 
of strong personal attachment, of unsurpassed fidelity 
and devotion, manifested in acts of charity and love. 
You might see the Sepoy of many fights, watchful 
and tender as a woman, beside the sick-bed of the 
English officer, or playing with the pale-faced chil- 
dren beneath the verandah of his captain's bungalow. 
There was not an English gentlewoman in the 
country who did not feel measureless security in the 
thought that a guard of Sepoys watched her house, 
or who would not have travelled, under such an 
escort, across the whole length and breadth of the 



DEFECTS IN THE SYSTEM. 320 

land. What was lurking beneath the fair surface we 1851-56. 
knew not. We saw only the softer side of the 
Sepoy's nature ; and there was nothing to make us 
believe that there was danger in the coniidence which 
we reposed in those outward signs of attachment to 
our rule. 

But whilst cherishing this not unreasonable con- Defects iuth 
fidence in the general good character of the Sepoy, ^^*^"'' 
the British Government might still have suffered 
some doubts and misgivings to arise when they looked 
into the details of the System. They might, it has 
been urged, have believed in the soundness of the 
whole, but admitted the defectiveness of parts, and 
addressed themselves earnestly and deliberately to 
the details of the great work of Army Reform. In- 
stead of boasting that the condition of the Native 
soldier left nothing to be desired, Lord Dalhousie, it 
is said, ought to have looked beneath the surface, to 
have probed all the vices of the existing system, and 
to have striven with all his might to eradicate them. 
Information was not wanting. " Officers of expe- 
rience" were at all times ready to tell him what it 
behoved him to do. But in the multitude of coun- 
sellors there was inextricable confusion. As with the 
whole, so with the parts. The forty years' experience 
of one greybeard belied the forty years' experience 
of another. And when the responsible ruler had 
been almost persuaded to see a blot and to promise 
to erase it, another adviser came, straightway de- 
clared it to be a beauty, and besought him to leave it 
as it was. Thus distracted by the conflicting judg- 
ments of the best military critics, Dalhousie did, as 
others had done before him ; he admitted that if he 
had then for the first time to construct a Native 
Army it would in some respects differ from that 



330 THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF INDIA. 

1551-56. which he saw before him, the growth not of systems 
and theories but of circumstances ; but that as it had 
grown up, so on the whole it was better to leave it, 
as Change is sometimes dangerous, and almost always 
misunderstood. 

That, indeed, there w^as no more difficult question 
to understand than that of the Sepoy Army, was a 
fact which must have been continually forced upon 
the mind of the Governor- General, by the discordant 
opinions which were pronounced on points vitally 
affecting its fidelity and efficiency. Even on the 
Ua^ie. great question of Caste, men differed. Some said it 
was desirable that our Native regiments should be 
composed mainly of high-caste men ; because in such 
men were combined many of the best qualities, moral 
and physical, which contribute to the formation of 
an accomplished soldier. The high-caste man had a 
bolder spirit, a purer professional pride, a finer frame, 
and a more military bearing, than his countryman of 
lower social rank. Other authorities contended that 
the Native soldiery should be enlisted indiscriminately, 
that no account should be taken of Caste distinctions, 
and that the smaller the proportion of Brahmins and 
Rajpoots in the service the better for the discipline 
of the Army.* Comparisons were drawn between the 
Bengal and the Bombay Armies. There was a strong 
and not imnatural prejudice in favour of the Bengal 
Sepoy ; for he was a fine, noble-looking fellow, and in 
comparison with his comrades from the Southern and 
Western Presidencies, was said to be quite a gentle- 
man ; but there were those who alleged that he was 
more a gentleman than a soldier ; and it was urged 
that the normal state of the Bengal Army was Mutiny, 
because in an Army so constituted Caste was ever 

* For the statistics of Caste in the Sepoy Army, scu Appendix. 



HIGH CASTE AND LOW CASTE. 331 

stronger than Discipline ; and the social institutions 1851-56. 
of the Sepoy domineered over the necessities of the 
State. 

It was contended, for this reason, that the Bengal 
Army required a larger infusion of low-caste men. 
But it was alleged, on the other hand, that this very 
mixture of castes tended to destroy the discipline of 
which it was proposed to make it the preservative; 
for that military rank was held to be nothing in com- 
parison with Brahminical Elevation, and that the 
Sepoy was often the "master of the officer."* To this 
it was replied that the presumption of Caste was 
favoured and fostered by the weakness and indul- 
gence of the officers of the Bengal Army ; that, in the 
armies of Madras and Bombay, Caste had found its 
level ; that it had neither been antagonistic to good 
service, nor injurious to internal discipline; that 
high-caste men in those armies did cheerfully what 
they refused to do in Bengal, and that low-caste 
native officers met with all the respect from their 
social superiors due to their superior military rank. 
It was asserted, indeed, that Brahminism was arro- 
gant and exacting in Bengal, because it saw that it 
could play upon the fears of the English officers. To 
this it was replied, that disregard Caste as we might, 
we could never induce the natives to disregard it. 
And then again the rejoinder was, that in the other 
Presidencies we had taught them to disregard it, why, 
then, might not the same lesson be taught in Bengal ? 
The answer to this was, that men will often do in 
other countries what they cannot be persuaded to do 

* " I cannot conceive the pos- down to him with his forehead on 

sibility of maintaining discipline in a the ground. I have seen this done, 

corps where a low-caste non-com- The Sepoy thus treated is the master 

missioned officer will, when he meets of the officer." — jEoidence of Mnjoi- 

off duty a Brahmin Sepoy, crouch General Birch. 



332 THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF IlsDIA. 

1851-50. in their own ; that high-caste Hindostanees enlisting 
into the Bombay or Madras Armies were^ to a great 
extent, cut off from the brotherhood, that they were 
greatly outnumbered in their several regiments, that 
it was convenient to conform to the custom of the 
country, and that what he did in a foreign country 
among strangers was little known at home. In a 
word, when he took service in the Bombay Army, he 
did what was done in Bombay ; just as among our- 
selves, men who, fearful of losing caste, would on no 
account be seen to enter a London hell, think nothing 
of spending whole days in the gambling-rooms of 
Homburg or Baden-Baden. 
^atlonalil:es. Of a kindred nature was the question hotly dis- 
cussed, whether it were wiser to compose each regi- 
ment of men of the same race, or to mix up different 
races in the same corps. On the one hand, it was 
alleged that the fusion of different nationalities had a 
tendency to keep internal combinations in check ; but 
that if men of one tribe were formed into separate re- 
giments; if we had Patau regiments and Goorkha 
regiments, Sikh regiments and Mahratta regiments, 
facilities for mutinous combinations would be greatly 
increased. On the other hand, it was contended that 
the fusion of different tribes and castes in the several 
regiments encouraged external combinations by im- 
parting common interests to the whole Army ; that 
if safety were to be sought in the antagonism of na- 
tionalities, it was more likely to be attained by keep- 
ing them apart than by fusing them into a hetero- 
geneous mass ; that it was easier to keep one regiment 
from following the example of another composed of 
different materials, raised and stationed in a different 
part of the country, than to keep one half of a regi- 
ment from following the example of the other ; easier 



POINTS OF CONTROVERSY. ,S3.*5 

io make men fight against tliose wliom they had never 1851-55. 
seen, than against those with whom they had long 
lived, if not in brotherhood of caste, at least in bro- 
therhood of service. 

Again, men discussed, with reference to this ques- Local and Ge. 
tion of combination, the relative advantages and dis- ^^^^ fc>ervice. 
advantages of localisation and distribution. Whilst 
some contended that the different Sepoy regiments 
should serve respectively only in certain parts of the 
country, except under any peculiar exigencies of war 
— in other words, that they should be assimilated as 
much as possible to a sort of local militia — others 
were in favour of the existing system, under which 
there were periodical reliefs, and regiments marched 
from one station to another, often many hundreds of 
miles apart. On the one hand it was argued that 
there was much danger in the local influence which 
would be acquired by men long resident in the same 
place, and that intrigues and plots, rendered perilous 
by the fusion of the civil and military classes, might 
result from this localisation ; and, on the other, it 
was urged that it was far more dangerous to suffer 
the Sepoy regiments to become extensively acquainted 
with each other, for the men to form friendships, and 
therefore to have correspondents in other corps, and 
thus to afford them the means, in times of excitement, 
of forming extensive combinations, and spreading, as 
it were, a network of conspiracy over the whole face 
of the country. Thus, again, men of wisdom and ex- 
perience neutralised one another's judgments, and 
from amongst so many conflicting opinions it was 
impossible to evolve the truth. 

It was a question also much debated whether the Families. 
fidelity and efficiency of the Sepoy were best main- 
tained by keeping him a; art from his family, or by 



334 THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF INDIA. 

1851-55. suffering the wives, the children, and the dependents 
of the soldier to attach themselves to his regiment, 
and to follow his fortunes. The former was the system 
in the Bengal Army; the latter, in the Army of 
Madras, and partially in that of Bombay. Each sys 
tem had its advocates ; each its special advantages. 
The Bengal Sepoy visited his family at stated times, 
and remitted to them a large part of his pay. If he 
failed to do this he was a marked man in his reoi- 
ment ; and, it was said, that the knowledge that if he 
failed in his duty as a soldier, a report of liis miscon- 
duct would surely reach his native village, and that 
his face would be blackened before his kindred, kept 
him in the strict path of his duty. The presence of 
the Family led to much inconvenience and embar- 
rassment, and the necessity of moving it from one 
station to another, when the regiments were relieved, 
strained the scanty resources of the Sepoy, and de- 
veloped grievances out of which mutiny might arise.* 
It was said, indeed, that there was " hardly a Native 
regiment in the Bengal Army in which the twenty 
drummers, who were Christians, and had . their 
families with them, did not cause more trouble to 
their onicers than the whole eight hundred Sepoys."f 
On the other hand, it was urged that the presence of 
the Family afforded the best guarantee for the fidelity 
and good conduct of the Sepoy. His children were 
hostages in our hands ; the honour of his women was 
in our keeping. These were held to be safeguards 
against mutiny and massacre. It was urged, too, 
that the system tended more to keep them, as a race, 
apart from the general mass of their countrymen ; 
that the ties which bound them to the country were 

* See the case of the Sixth f Sleeman on the Spirit of Disci- 
Madras Cavalry, ante, page 291. pliue in the Native Arijiy, 



THE SENIORITY SYSTEM. 335 

thus weakened, and tlieir interests more indissolubly 1S51 'jf^. 
associated witli the State. They were less represen- 
tative men than their brethren of the Bengal Army, 
and more a part of the machinery of Government. 
And so each system had its advocates, and each was 
left to work itself out and develop its own results. 

Great, also, was the difference of opinion with respect Promotion, 
to Promotion. Some said that the Bengal Army was 
destroyed by the Seniority system, which gave to every 
Sepoy in the service an equal chance of rising to the 
rank of a Commissioned Officer.* Others maintained 
that this was the very sheet-anchor which enabled it 
to resist all adverse influences. Strong arguments 
were adduced, and great names were quoted upon 
both sides. It was said that under such a system 
there was no incentive to exertion ; that the men 
were independent of their officers, that they had no 
motive to earn the good opinion of their superiors, that 
it was enouo^h for them to drowse throucrh a certain 
number of years of service, to slide quietly into a 
commission, and then to end their military lives in a 
state of senile somnolence and apathy. The Native 
officers of the Bengal Army were, therefore, for the 
most part^ respectable, worn-out, feeble-minded old 
men, with no influence in their regiments, and no de- 
sire beyond that of saving themselves as much trouble 
as possible, and keeping things as quiet as they could. 
On the other hand, it was alleged that the seniority 
system was the very prop and support of the Sepoy 
service ; that all men were happy and contented, and 
had some aliment of hope, so long as they felt that 
nothing but their own misconduct could deprive them 
of the right of succession to the highest grades of the 

* To every regiment of Native dar-niajor, ten Soubahdais, and tea 
infantrv were attached one Soubah- Jemadars. 



336 THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF INLIA. 

•1-5G. Native Army. It was said that to pass over a man at 
the head of the list, and to give promotion to others 
of shorter service, would be to flood the regiments with 
desperate malcontents, or else with sullen, broken- 
spirited idlers. Whilst Henry Lawrence and John 
Jacob were descanting on the evil of filling the com- 
missioned ranks of the Sepoy Army with "poor old 
wretches, feeble in body and imbecile in mind,"* 
Charles Napier was peremptorily commanding that 
" the fullest attention and consideration should inva- 
riably be given to the claim of seniority in every 
grade" of the Native Army, and William Sleeman 
was asserting, not less emphatically, in his published 
writings, that ''though we might have in every regi- 
ment a few smarter Native officers, by disregarding 
the rule of promotion than by adhering to it, we 
should, in the diminution of good feeling towards 
the European officers and the Government, lose a 
thousand times more than we gained."f What won- 
der, then, that Governor- General after Governor- Ge- 
neral was perplexed and bewildered, and left things, 
when he passed away from the scene, as he found 
them on his first arrival. 

* Views and Opinions of General was a good man, and had seen much 

John Jacob, p. 120 ; compare also service. He had me taken into the 

Sir Henry Lawrence's Essays, Mili- open air, and when T recovered he 

tary and Political, p. 2-i et seq. told me that he would write to the 

f Sleeman relates, that " an old Commander-in-Cliief and represent 

Soubahdar, who had been at the my case. He did so immediately, 

taking of the Isle of France, men- and I was promoted, and I have 

lioned that when he was the senior since done my duty as Soubahdar for 

Jemadar of his regiment, and a ten years.' " But, it may be asked, 

vacancy liad occurred to bring him howf It must be borne in mind, 

in as Soubahdar, he was sent for by too, that Sleeman speaks here of 

his commanding officer, and told that the effect of supersession under a 

by orders from Head-Quarters he Seniority system. Under a sv stem of 

was to be passed over, on account of selection such results would not be 

liis advanced age and supposed in- apparent, because there would not be 

firmity. * I felt,' said the old man, the same disgrace iu beinir passed 

* as if I had been struck by lightning, over. 
and fell down dead. The Colonel 



OFFICERING OF THE ARMY. 337 

Then, again, there were wide diversities of opinion 185l-^*;i 
with respect to the European officering of regiments. Emopeay! 
There were those who contended for the Irregular and ^^^^^^' 
those who were loud in their praises of the Regular 
system ; some who thought it better to attach to each 
regiment a few select officers, as in the old times, 
giving them some power and authority over their 
men ; and others who believed it to be wiser to officer 
the regiments after the later English system, like regi- 
ments of the Line, with a large available surplus for 
purposes of the General Staff, and to leave all the 
centralised power and authority in the hands of the 
Adjutant- General of the Army.* There was a con- 
tinual cry, not always, it must be admitted, of the 
most unselfish character, for " more officers ;" and 
yet it was plain that the Irregular regiments, to 
which only three or four picked officers were at- 
tached, were in a perfect state of discipline in peace, 
and capable of performing admirable service in war. 
It was said that in action the Sepoys, losing their 
officers, killed or carried wounded to the rear, lost 
heart, and were soon panic-struck ; and that if officers 
were so few, this contingency must often happen. To 
this, however, it was replied, that if the Native 
officers were of the right class, they would keep their 
men together, and still do good service ; but if they 
were worn-out imbeciles, or over-corpulent and scant 
of breath, of course disorder and ruin must follow 
the fall of the English officers. Then, hearing this, 
the disputant on the other side would triumphanth 
ask how many years' purchase our empire in India 
were worth, if our Native officers were as efficient as 

* A regiment of Native Infantry 5 ensigns. A few months after- 

in March, 1856, was officered by 1 wards another captain and another 

colonel, 1 lientenant-coionel, 1 ma- lieutenant were added to each regi- 

jor, 6 captains, 10 lieutenants, and ment. 



338 THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF INDIA. 

1S§1.56. ourselves. It was often argued, indeed, that our in- 
structions might some day return to plague the in- 
ventor ; that to make men qualified to lead our bat- 
talions to battle against our enemies is to qualify 
them to command troops to fight against ourselves. 
But there were others, and chief among them Henry 
Lawrence, who, taking a larger and more liberal view 
of the question, contended that it was sound policy 
to give to every man, European and Native, a motive 
for exertion ; who declared that it was one of the 
crying wants of our system that it afforded no outlet 
for the energies of Native soldiers of superior courage 
and ability, and urged that we could not expect to 
have an efficient Native Army so long as we rigidly 
maintained in it the theory of the Dead Level, and 
purposely excluded every possible inducement to 
superior exertion. 

Nor less curious were the fundamental diversities 
of opinion which manifested themselves, when think- 
ing men began to consider whether the English in 
India carried into their daily lives too much or too 
little of their nationality. It was asserted on the one 
side that the English officer was too stiff-necked and 
exclusive, that he dwelt apart too much^ and subdued 
himself too little to surrounding influences ; and on 
the other side, that he fell too rapidly into Oriental 
habits, and soon ceased to be, what it should have 
been his ambition to remain to the last, a model of 
an English Gentleman. It was urged by some that 
increased facilities of intercourse with Europe ren- 
dered men more dissatisfied with the ordinary en- 
vironments of Eastern life and professional duty, 
whilst others declared that one of the most serious 
defects in the Indian Military System was the diffi- 
culty with which the English officer obtained furlough 



DIVERSITIES OF OPINION. 339 

to Europe.* The stringency of the Furlougli Regula- 1851-56. 
tions had, however, been greatly relaxed during the 
administration of Lord Dalhousie, and the establish- 
ment of regular steam-communication between the 
two countries had made the new rules practical 
realities. But whatsoever increased intercourse with 
Europe may have done to promote the application of 
Western science to our Indian Military System, it did 
not improve the regimental officer. It was contended 
that he commonly returned to his duty with increased 
distaste for cantonment life ; and that he obeyed the 
mandate, " Let it be the fashion to be English," by 
suffering a still greater estrangement to grow up 
between him and the Native soldier. 

Indeed, there was scarcely a single point, in the 
whole wide range of topics connected with the great 
subject of the efficiency of the Native Indian Army, 
which did not raise a doubt and suggest a contro- 
versy. And there was so much of demonstrable 
truth in the assertions, and so much cogency in the 
arguments adduced, on both sides, that in the eyes of 
the looker-on it was commonly a drawn battle between 
the two contending parties; and so, as it was the 
easier and perhaps the safer course to leave things as 
they were, the changes which Army Reformers so 
earnestly advocated were practically rejected, and we 
clung to evils which had grown up in the system 
rather than we would incur the risk of instituting 
others of our own. 

But perplexing as were these practical details, there Intermixtura 
was nothing so difficult of solution as the great doubt Troops?^^^" 
which arose as to the amount of confidence in the 
Sepoy Army which it was expedient outwardly to 
manifest. It was said, upon the one hand, that any 

* Views and Ojoinions of Brigadier-General John Jacob. 



340 THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF INDU. 

1851.56. diminution of our confidence would be fatal to our 
rule, and, on the other, that our confidence was lead- 
ins^ us onward to destruction. Some said that the 
Native Army should be narrowly watched, and held 
in control by sufiicient bodies of European soldiery ; 
others contended that we could commit no more fatal 
mistake than that of betraying the least suspicion of 
the Sepoy, and suggesting even a remote possibility 
of one part of our Army ever being thrown into an- 
tagonism to the other. This controversy was half a 
century old. When, after the Massacre of Yellore, the 
Madras Government urged upon the Supreme Autho- 
rity in Bengal the expediency of sending some rein- 
forcements of European troops to the Coast, the latter 
refused to respond to the call, on the ground that 
such a movement would betray a general want of 
confidence in the Native Army, and might drive re- 
giments still loyal into rebellion under an impulse of 
fear. There was force in this argument, which will 
be readily appreciated by all who understand the 
character of the Sepoy Army ; and its cogency was 
not diminished by the fact put forth by the Madras 
Government that the European troops under their 
command were fewer by two thousand men than 
they had been before the recent large extension of 
territory. But a great lesson was to be learnt from 
the embarrassment which then arose ; a lesson which 
ought to have been taken to the hearts of our rulers 
from one generation to another. It was then clearly 
revealed, not merely that " prevention is better than 
cure," but that prevention may be possible when cure 
is not ; that we may hold danger in check by quietly 
anticipating it, but that, when it has arisen, the mea- 
sures, to which we might have resorted before the 
fact, caimot be pursued, after it, without increasing 



AMOUNT OF EUROPEAN FORCE. 341 

the evil. If anything should teach us the wisdom of 1851-56. 
never suffering our European force, even in the most 
tranquil times, to decline below what we may call 
" the athletic standard," it is the fact that, when the 
times cease to be tranquil, we cannot suddenly raise it 
to that standard without exciting alarm and creating 
danger. 

But this lesson was not learnt. Or, if Indian 
statesmen ever took it to their hearts, it was remorse- 
lessly repudiated in the Councils of the English 
nation. Other considerations than those of the actual 
requirements of our Indian Empire were suffered to 
determine the amount of European strength to be 
maintained on the Company's establishment. Stated 
in round numbers, it may be said that the normal 
state of things, for some years, had been that of an 
Army of three hundred thousand men, of which forty 
thousand were European troops.* Of these, roughly 
calculated, about one-third were the local European 
troops of the Company, raised exclusively for Indian 
service; the rest were the men of royal regiments, 
Horse and Foot, periodically relieved according to 
the will of the Imperial Government, but paid out of 
the Revenues of India. In the five years preceding the 
departure of Lord Dalhousie from India, the strength 
of the Company's European troops had been somewhat 
increased, but the force which England lent to India 
was considerably reduced. In 1852, there were 
twenty-nine Royal regiments in the three Presidencies 
of India, mustering twenty-eight thousand men; in 
1856, there were twenty-four Royal regiments, mus- 
tering twenty-three thousand men. During those 
five years there had been a vast extension of empire ; 
but the aggregate European strength was lower in 

* For the details of the Native Army of India, see Tables in Appendix. 



342 THE MLITARY SYSTEM OF INDIA. 

1851-56. 1856 than in 1852 by nearly three thousand men. 
Between those two dates England had been engaged 
in a great war, and she wanted her troops for Eu- 
ropean service. 
The Ciimean ^^ deceive ourselves, when we think that Euro- 
^ar- pean politics make no impression on the Indian Public. 

The impression may be very vague and indistinct; 
but ignorance is a magnifier of high power, and there 
are never wanting a few designing men, with clearer 
knowledge of the real state of things, to work upon 
the haziness of popular conceptions, and to turn a 
little grain of truth to account in generating a harvest 
of lies. That a number of very preposterous stories 
were industriously circulated, and greedily swallowed, 
during the Crimean war, and that these stories all 
pointed to the downfal of the British power, is not 
to be doubted. It was freely declared that Russia 
had conquered and annexed England, and that Queen 
Victoria had fled and taken refuge with the Governor- 
General of India. The fact that the war was with 
Russia gave increased significance to these rumours ; 
for there had long been a chronic belief that the Russ- 
logue would some day or other contend with us for 
the mastery of India ; that, coming down in immense 
hordes from the North, and carrying with them the 
intervening Mahomedan States, they would sweep us, 
broken and humbled, into the sea. And it required 
no great acuteness to perceive that if a popular insur- 
rection in India were ever to be successful, it was when 
the military resources of the empire were absorbed by 
a great European war. It is at such times as these, 
therefore, when there is always some disturbance of 
the public mind, that especial care should be taken 
to keep the European strength in India up to the 
right athletic standard. But, in these very times, the 



DEFICIENCY OF EUROPEAN FORCE. 343 

dependency is called upon to aid the empire, and lier 1851-56 
European regiments are reluctantly given up at the 
critical moment when she most desires to retain them. 
"The idea broached in Parliament," said a Native 
gentleman, " of drawing troops from India for the 
Crimean War, took intelligent natives of India by sur- 
prise." They saw plainly the folly of thus revealing 
our weakness to the subject races ; for we could not 
more loudly proclaim the inadequacy of our resources 
than by denuding ourselves in one quarter of the 
world in order that we might clothe ourselves more 
sufficiently in another. 

Nor was it this alone that, during the last years of 
Lord Dalhousie's administration, " took intelligent 
natives of India by surprise." They saw us increas- 
ing our territory, in all directions, without increasing 
our European force. There were those who argued 
that territorial increase did not necessarily demand 
increased means of defence, as it might be a change, 
not an extension of frontier ; indeed, that the consoli- 
dation of our empire, by diminishing the numbers of 
our enemies, ought rather to be regarded as a reason 
for the diminution of our military strength. And 
this, in respect to our external enemies, it has already 
been observed, was not untrue.* But our dangers were 
from within, not from without ; and it was forgotten 
that false friends might be more dangerous than open 
enemies. The English in India were, indeed, con- 
tinually in a state of siege, and the conquest of their 
external enemies increased the perils of their position, 
for it deprived them of those safety-valves which had 
often before arrested a ruinous explosion. We were 
far too sanguine in our estimates of the results of con- 
quest or annexation. We saw everything as we wished 
* Jnte, p. 276. 



344 THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF INDIA. 

1851-56. to see it. We saw contentment in submission, loyalty 
in quiescence ; and took our estimate of national sen- 
timent from the feelings of a few interested individuals 
who were making money by the change. But " intel- 
ligent natives" seeing clearly our delusion, knowing 
that we believed a lie, wondered greatly at our want 
of wisdom in suffering vast tracts of territory, per- 
haps only recently brought under British rule, to lie 
naked and defenceless, without even a detachment of 
English fighting men to guard the lives of the new 
masters of the country. And little as we gave them 
credit for sagacity in such matters, they touched the 
very kernel of our danger with a needle's point, and 
predicted that our confidence would destroy us. 

It was fortunate that, when we conquered the 
Punjab, it was impossible to forget that Afghanistan, 
still festering with animosities and resentments born 
of the recent invasion, lay contiguous to the frontier 
of our new province. It was fortunate, too, that 
Henry Lawrence, being a man of a quick imagina- 
tion, could feel as a Sikh chief or a Sikh soldier would 
feel under the new yoke of the Fcringhee, and could 
therefore believe that we were not welcomed as de- 
liverers from one end of the country to the other. 
But it was not fortunate that the obvious necessity 
of garrisoning this frontier Province with a strong 
European force should have been practically regarded 
as a reason for denudino; all the rest of India of Ens;- 
lish troops. Acting in accordance with the old tradi- 
tions, that the only danger with which our position 
in India is threatened, is danger coming from the 
North- West, we massed a large body of Europeans 
in the Punjab, and scattered, at wide intervals, the 
few remaining regiments at our disposal over other 
parts of our extended dominions. Thus we visibly 



THE ANNEXATION OF OUDE. 345 

became more and more dependent on our Native 1851-55. 
Army; and it needed only the declaration of weak- 
ness made, when England called on India for regi- 
ments to take part in the Crimean war, to assure 
" intelligent natives" that the boasted resources of 
England were wholly insufficient to meet the demands 
made upon them from different quarters, and that we 
could only confront danger in one part of the world 
by exposing ourselves to it in another.* 

And this impression was strengthened by the fact Effects of the 
that when Oude was annexed to our British terri- ^"^^^^^"'O" of 
tories, although the province was thereby filled with 
the disbanded soldiery of the destroyed Native Govern- 
ment, and with a dangerous race of discontented 
nobles, whom the revolution had stripped of their 
privileges and despoiled of their wealth, the English 
appeared not to possess the means of garrisoning with 
European troops the country which they had thus 
seized. As Oude was not a frontier province, there 
was no necessity to mass troops there, as in the 
Punjab, for purposes of external defence ; and the 
English, emboldened by success, were stronger than 
ever in their national egotism, and believed that, as 
they could not be regarded in Oude in any other light 
than that of deliverers, there was small need to make 
provision against the possibility of internal disturb- 
ance. They left the province, therefore, after annexa- 
tion had been proclaimed, with only a small handful of 
European fighting men ; and " intelligent natives" 
were again surprised to see that the English gentlemen 
were carrying out their new scheme of administra- 
tion, to the ruin of almost every pre-existing interest 

* It has been alleged, too, that the gent natives with the belief that we 

subscriptions raised towards the sup- were as short of money as we were 

port of the Patriotic Fund, during of men. 
the Crimean War, impressed intelli- 



y 



346 THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF INDIA. 

1851-56. in the country, with as much confidence as if every 
district of Oude were bristling with British bayonets. 
They saw, too, that the English had absorbed one of 
the last remaining Mahomedan States of India ; and 
they felt that not only would this prodigious appro- 
priation be regarded from one end of India to the 
other as the precursor of new seizures, and that it 
would thus greatly disturb the public mind, but that 
the very class of men on whom we appeared to rely 
for the continued security of our position were, of all 
others, most likely to resent this act of aggression. 

For the annexation of Oude had some results in- 
jurious to the Sepoy. A very large portion of the 
Bengal Army was drawn from that province. In 
\ every village were the families of men who wore the 
uniform and bore the arms of the English. Being for 
the most part high-caste Hindoos, they might not 
.have regarded the peaceful revolution by which a 
.iMahomedan monarchy was destroyed with any strong 
^ ifeelings of national resentment ; and it is certain that 
this extension of territory was not provocative of the 
feelings of aversion and alarm with which they re- 
garded those other seizures which had sent them to 
rot in the charnel-house of Scinde, or to perish in 
exile on the frontiers of Afghanistan. Their griefs 
were of another kind. The old state of things had 
suited them better. They had little sympathy, per- 
haps, with Wajid Ali, and service in Oude brought 
them nearer to their homes. But so long as it was a 
foreign province, they derived certain special privi- 
leges and advantages from their position as the 
servants of the Company, and increased importance 
in the eyes of the people of the province. They had, 
indeed, been a favoured race, and as such the Sepoy 
families had held up their heads above those of their 



PRIVILEGES OF THE OUDE SEPOYS. 347 

countrymen who had no such bonds of privilege and 1851-56 
protection to unite them to the Paramount State. 
" The Sepoy," wrote the man who had studied the 
character and probed the feelings of the Native more 
deeply and philosophically perhaps than any of his 
contemporaries — '' the Sepoy is not the man of con- 
sequence he was. He dislikes annexations ; among 
other reasons, because each new province added to 
the Empire widens his sphere of service, and at the 
same time decreases our foreign enemies and thereby 

the Sepoy's importance The other day, an 

Oude Sepoy of the Bombay Cavalry at Neemuch, 
being asked if he liked annexation, replied, ^ No ; I 
used to be a great man w^hen I went home. The best 
in my village rose as I approached. Now the lowest 
puff their pipes in my face.' "* Under the all-pre- 
vailing lawlessness and misrule, which had so long 
overridden the province, the English Sepoy, whatever 
might be the wrongs of others, was always sure of a 
full measure of justice on appeal to the British 
Resident. If he himself were not, some member of 
his family was, a small yeoman, with certain rights in 
the land — rights which commonly among his country- 
men were as much a source of trouble as a source of 
pride — and in all the disputes and contentions in 
which these interests involved him, he had the pro- 
tection and assistance of the Resident, and right or 
wrong carried his point. In the abstract it was, 
doubtless, an evil state of things, for the Sepoys' 

* Sir Henry Lawrence to Lord officer wliat we would do without 

Canning, MS. Correspondence. I them. Another said, ' Now you have 

may give here in a note the words got the Punjab, you will reduce the 

omitted in the text, as bearing. Army.' A third remarked, when he 

though not immediately, upon the heard that Scinde was to be joined 

Oude question, and upon the general to the Bengal Presidency, ' Perhaps 

subject of annexation : " Ten years there will be an order to join Lon- 

ago, a Sepoy in the Punjab asked an don to Bengal." "* 



> »> 



348 THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF INDIA. 

1 851-56. privileges were often used as instruments of oppre- 
sion, and were sometimes counterfeited with the heli 
of an old regimental jacket and pair of boots, by mei 
who had never gone right-face to the word of com- 
mand. But for this very reason they were dearly 
valued ; and when the Sepoys were thus brought 
down by annexation to the dead level of British sub- 
jects, when the Residency ceased to be, and all men 
were equally under the protection of the Commis- 
sioner, the Sepoy families, like all the other privileged 
classes in Oude, learnt what the revolution had cost 
them, and, wide apart as their several grievances lay 
from each other, they joined hands with other sufferers 
over a common grief. 



Summary of Looldng, then, at the condition of the Native Army 
ia^ilueuces!"° of India, and especially at the state of the Bengal re- 
giments, as it was in the spring of 1856, we see that a 
series of adverse circumstances, culminating in the 
annexation of Oude, some influencing him from with- 
out and some from Avithin, had weakened the attach- 
ment of the Sepoy to his colours. We see that, whilst 
the bonds of internal discipline were being relaxed, 
external events, directly or indirectly affecting his 
position, were exciting within him animosities and 
discontents. We see that as he grew less faithful and 
obedient, he grew also more presuming ; that whilst 
he was less under the control of his officers and the 
dominion of the State, he was more sensible of the 
extent to which we were dependent upon his fidelity, 
and therefore more capricious and exacting. He had 
been neglected on the one hand, and pampered on the 
other. As a soldier, he had in many ways dete- 
riorated, but he was not to be regarded only as a 



STATE OF THE SEPOY'S MIND. 349 

soldier. He was a representative man, the embodi- 1851-56 
ment of feelings and opinions shared by large classes 
of his countrymen, and circumstances might one day 
render him their exponent. He had many opportu- 
nities of becoming acquainted with passing events and 
public opinion. He mixed in cantonments, or on 
the line of march, with men of different classes and 
different countries ; he corresponded with friends at a 
distance ; he heard all the gossip of the Bazaars, and 
he read, or heard others read, the strange mixture of 
truth and falsehood contained in the Native news- 
papers. He knew what were the measures of the 
British Government, sometimes even what were its 
intentions, and he interpretea their meanings, as men 
are wont to do, who, credulous and suspicious, see in- 
sidious designs and covert dangers in the most bene- 
ficent acts. He had not the faculty to conceive that 
the English were continually originating great changes 
for the good of the people ; our theories of govern- 
ment were beyond his understanding, and as he had 
ceased to take counsel with his English officer, he was 
given over to strange delusions, and believed the 
most dangerous lies. 

But in taking account of the effect produced upon 
the Sepoy's mind by the political and social measures 
of the British Government, we must not think only 
of the direct action of these measures — of the soldier's 
own reading of distant events, which might have had 
no bearing upon his daily happiness, and which, there- 
fore, in his selfishness he might have been content to 
disregard. For he often read these things with other 
men's eyes, and discerned them with other men's un- 
derstandings. If the political and social revolutions, 
of which I have written, did not affect him, they 
affected others, wiser in their generation, more astute. 



350 THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF INDIA. 

1851.56. more designing, who put upon everything that we 
did the gloss best calculated to debauch the Sepoy's 
mind, and to prepare him, at a given signal, for an 
outburst of sudden madness. Childish, as he was, in 
his faith, there was nothing easier than to make hinx 
believe all kinds and conditions of fictions, not only 
wild and grotesque in themselves, but in violent con- 
tradiction of each other. He was as ready to believe 
that the extension of our territory would throw him 
out of employment, as that it would inflict upon him 
double work. He did not choose between these two 
extremes ; he accepted both, and took the one or the 
other, as the humour pleased him. There were never 
wanting; men to feed his imaofination with the kind of 
aliment which pleased it best, and reason never came 
to his aid to purge him of the results of this gross 
feeding. 

Many were the strange glosses which were given to 
the acts of the British Government ; various were the 
ingenious fictions woven with the purpose of un- 
settling the minds and uprooting the fidelity of the 
Sepoy. But diverse as they were in many respects, 
there was a certain unity about them, for they all 
tended to persuade him that our measures weve di- 
rected to one common end, the destruction of Caste, 
and the general introduction of Christianity into the 
land. If we annexed a province, it was to facilitate 
our proselytising operations, and to increase the num- 
ber of our converts. Our resumption operations 
were instituted for the purpose of destroying all the 
religious endowments of the country. Our legislative 
enactments were all tending to the same result, the 
subversion of Hindooism and Mahomedanism. Our 
educational measures were so many direct assaults 
upon the religions of the country. Our penal system, 



CORRUPTING INFLUENCES. 351 

according to their showing, disguised a monstrous 1851.56. 
attempt to annihilate caste, by compelling men of all 
denominations to feed together in the gaols. In the 
Lines of every regiment there were men eager to tell 
lies of this kind to the Sepoy, mingled with assurances 
that the time was coming when the Feringhees would 
be destroyed to a man ; when a new empire would 
be established, and a new military system inaugu- 
rated, under which the high rank and the higher pay 
monopolised by the English would be transferred to 
the people of the country. We know so little of what 
is stirring in the depths of Indian society ; we dwell 
so much apart from the people; we see so little of 
them, except in full dress and on their best behaviour, 
that perilous intrigues and desperate plots might be 
woven, under the very shadow of our bungalows, 
without our perceiving any symptoms of danger. But 
still less can we discern that quiet under-current of 
hostility which is continually flowing on without any 
immediate or definite object, and which, if we could 
discern it, would baffle all our efforts to trace it to its 
source. But it does not the less exist because we are 
ignorant of the form which it assumes, or the fount 
from which it springs. The men, whose business it 
was to corrupt the minds of our Sepoys, were, perhaps, 
the agents of some of the old princely houses, which 
we had destroyed,* or members of old baronial families 
which we had brought to poverty and disgrace. They 
were, perhaps, the emissaries of Brahminical Societies, 
whose precepts we were turning into folly, and whose 
power we were setting at naught. They were, perhaps, 
mere visionaries and enthusiasts, moved only by their 

* It was asserted at the time of Southern India, but that there was 

the "Mutiny of Vellore," that not scarcely a regiment into which they 

only were agents of the House of had not enlisted. 
Tippoo busy in all the Lines of 



352 THE MILITARY SYSTEM OF INDIA. 

1851-56. own disordered imaginations to proclaim tlie coming 
of some new prophet or some fresh avatar of the Deity, 
and the consequent downfal of Christian supremacy in 
the East. But whatsoever the nature of their mission, 
and whatsoever the guise they assumed, whether they 
appeared in the Lines as passing travellers, as journey- 
ing hawkers, as religious mendicants, or as wandering 
puppet-showmen, the seed of sedition which they scat- 
tered struck root in a soil well prepared to receive it 
and waited only for the ripening sun of circumstaiijce 
to develop a harvest of revolt. 



OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 353 



BOOK III.— THE OUTBEEAK OF THE MUTINY. 

[1856-1857.] 

CHAPTER I. 

DEPAUTURE OE LORD DALHOUSFE— HIS CHARACTER— THE QUESTION OF 
SUCCESSION — ARKIVAL OF LORD CANNING — HIS EARLY CAREER — COM 
MENCEMENT OF HIS ADMINISTRATION — HIS FELLOW - COUNCILLORS — 
GENERAL LOW— MR. DORIN— MR. GRANT— MR. BARNES PEACOCK— THE 
COMMANDER-IN-CHIEi . 

When, on the last day of February, 1856, "the 1856. 
Most Noble" the Marquis of Dalhousie placed the 
Portfolio of the Indian Empire in the hands of his 
successor, all men said that a great statesman and a 
great ruler was about to depart from the land. The 
praises that were bestowed upon him had been well 
earned. He had given his life to the public service ; 
and many feared, as they sorrowfully bade him fare- 
well, that he had given it up for the public good. 

He stood before men at that time as the very em- 
bodiment of Success. Whatsoever he had attempted 
to do he had done with his whole heart, and he had 
perfected it without a failure or a flaw. The policy 
which during those eventful eight years had been so 
consistently maintained was emphatically his policy. 
The success, therefore, was fairly his. No man had 
ever stamped his individuality more clearly upon the 
public measures of his times. There are periods when 
the Government fades into an impersonality; when 

2 k 



of Lord 
Dalliousie. 



354 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINV. 

1856. men cease to associate its measures with the idea of 
one dominant will. But during the reign then ended 
we heard little of "the Government;" in every one's 
mouth was the name of the individual Man. 
Character And in this remarkable individual manhood there 

was the very essence and concentration of the great 
national manhood ; there was an intense Englishism 
in him such as has seldom been equalled. It was the 
Englishism, too, of the nineteenth century, and of 
that particular epoch of the nineteenth century when 
well-nigh every one had the word " progress" on his 
lips, and stagnation was both disaster and disgrace. 
A man of strong convictions and extraordinary 
activity of mind, he laid fast hold of the one abstract 
truth that English government, English laws, English 
learning, English customs, and English manners, are 
better than the government, the laws, the learning 
the customs, and the manners of India ; and with all 
the earnestness of his nature and all the strength of 
his understanding he wrought out this great theory in 
practice. He never doubted that it was good alike 
for England and for India that the map of the 
country which he had been sent to govern should 
present one surface of Red. He was so sure of this, 
he believed it so honestly, so conscientiously, that, 
courageous and self-reliant as he was, he would have 
carried out this policy to the end, if all the chief 
officers and agents of his government had been 
arrayed against him. But he commenced his career 
at a time when the ablest of our public functionaries 
in India, with a few notable exceptions, had forsaken 
the traditions of the old school — the school of Mal- 
colm, of Elph in stone, and of Metcalfe — and stood 
eager and open-armed to embrace and press closely to 
them the very doctrines of which they perceived in 



CHARACTER OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 355 

Dalhousie so vigorous an exponent. He did not 1856. 
found the school ; neither were his opinions moulded 
in accordance with its tenets. He appeared among 
them and placed himself at their head, just at the 
very time when such a coming was needed to give 
consistency to their faith, and uniformity to their 
works. The coincidence had all the force of a dis- 
pensation. No prophet ever had more devoted fol- 
lowers. No king was ever more loyally served. For 
the strong faith of his disciples made them strive 
mightily to accomplish his will ; and he had in a rare 
degree the faculty of developing in his agents the 
very powers which were most essential to the fitting 
accomplishment of his work. He did not create those 
powers, for he found in his chief agents the instincts 
and energies most essential to his purpose ; but he 
fostered, he strengthened and directed them, so that 
what might have run to weed and waste withou this 
cherishing care, yielded under his culture, in ripe pro- 
fusion, a harvest of desired results. 

As his workmen were admirably suited to his work, 
so also was the field, to which he was called, the one 
best adapted to the exercise of his peculiar powers. 
In no other part of our empire could his rare ad- 
ministrative capacity have found such scope for de- 
velopment. For he was of an imperious and despotic 
nature, not submitting to control, and resenting oppo- 
sition ; and in no situation could he have exercised a 
larger measure of power in the face of so few consti- 
tutional checks. His capacities required free exercise, 
and it may be doubted whether they would have been 
fully developed by anything short of this absolute 
supremacy. But sustained and invigorated by a sense 
of enormous power, he worked with all the energies 
of a giant. And he was successful beyond all 

^ A 9 

^ A w 



356 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. example, so far as success is the full accomplishmeTit 
of one's o^vn desires and intentions. But one fatal 
defect in his character tainted the stream of his 
policy at the source, and converted into brilliant 
errors some of the most renowned of his achieve- 
ments. No man who is not endowed with a compre- 
hensive imagination can govern India with success. 
Dalhousie had no imagination. Lacking the imagi- 
native faculty, men, after long years of experience, 
may come to understand the national character ; and 
a man of lively imagination, without such experience, 
may readily apprehend it after the intercourse of a 
few weeks. But in neither way did Dalhousie ever 
come to understand the genius of the people among 
whom his lot was cast. He had but one idea of them 
— an idea of a people habituated to the despotism of 
a dominant race. He could not understand the 
tenacity of affection with which they clung to their 
old traditions. He could not sympathise with the 
veneration which they felt for their ancient dynasties. 
He could not appreciate their fidelity to the time- 
honoured institutions and the immemorial usas^es of 
the land. He had not the faculty to conceive that 
men might like their own old ways of government, 
with all their imperfections and corruptions about 
them, better than our more refined systems. Arguing 
all points with the preciseness of a Scotch logician, he 
made no allowance for inveterate habits and ingrained 
prejudices, and the scales of ignorance before men's 
eyes which will not suffer them rightly to discern 
between the good and the bad. He could not form a 
true dramatic conception of the feelings with which 
the representative of a long line of kings may be sup- 
posed to regard the sudden extinction of his royal 
house by the decree of a stranger and an infidel, or 



CHARACTER OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 357 

the bitterness of spirit in which a greybeard chief, 1856. 
whose family from generation to generation had 
enjoyed ancestral powers and privileges, might con- 
template his lot when suddenly reduced to poverty 
and humiliation by an incursion of aliens of another 
colour and another creed. He could not see with 
other men's eyes ; or think with other men's brains ; 
or feel with other men's hearts. With the charac- 
teristic unimaginativeness of his race he could not for 
a moment divest himself of his individuality, or con- 
ceive the growth of ancestral pride and national 
honour in other breasts than those of the Campbells 
and the Ramsays. 

And this egotism was cherished and sustained by 
the prevailing sentiments of the new school of Indian 
politicians, who, as I have said, laughed to scorn the 
doctrines of the men who had built up the great 
structure of our Indian Empire, and by the utterances 
of a Press, which, with rare ability, expounded the 
views of this school, and insisted upon the duty of 
universal usurpation. Such, indeed, was the pre- 
vailing tone of the majority, in all ranks from the 
highest to the lowest, that any one who meekly ven- 
tured to ask, " How would you like it yourself?" was 
reproached in language little short of that which 
might be fitly applied to a renegade or a traitor. To 
suggest that in an Asiatic race there might be a spirit 
of independence and a love of country, the manifes- 
tations of which were honourable in themselves, how- 
ever inconvenient to us, was commonly to evoke as 
the very mildest result the imputation of being 
"Anti-British," whilst sometimes the "true British 
feeling" asserted itself in a less refined choice of 
epithets, and those who ventured to sympathise in any 
way with the people of the East were at once de- 



358 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856, nounced as " white niggers." Yet among these very 
men, so intolerant of anything approaching the 
assertion of a spirit of liberty by an Asiatic people, 
there were some who could well appreciate and sym- 
pathise with the aspirations of European bondsmen, 
and could regard with admiration the struggles of 
the Italian, the Switzer, or the Pole to liberate him- 
self, by a sanguinary contest, from the yoke of the 
usurper. But the sight of the dark skin sealed up 
their sympathies. They contended not merely that 
the love of country, that the spirit of liberty, as 
cherished by European races, is in India wholly un- 
known, but that Asiatic nations, and especially the 
nations of India, have no right to judge what is best 
for themselves ; no right to revolt against the bene- 
hcence of a more civilised race of w^hite men, who 
would think and act for them, and deprive them, for 
their own good, of all their most cherished rights and 
their most valued possessions. 

So it happened that Lord Dalhousie's was a strong 
Government ; strong in everything but its confor- 
mity to the genius of the people. It was a Go- 
vernment admirably conducted in accordance with 
the most approved principles of European civilisation, 
by men whose progressive tendencies carried them 
hundreds of years in advance of the sluggish Asiatics, 
whom they vainly endeavoured to bind to the chariot- 
Avheels of their refined systems. There w^as every- 
thing to give it complete success but the stubbornness 
of the national mind. It failed, perhaps, only because 
the people preferred darkness to light, folly to 
wisdom. Of course the English gentlemen w^ere 
right and the Asiatics lamentably wrong. But the 
>>Tand scriptural warning against putting new wine 
into old bottles Avas disregarded. The wine was good 



CHARACTER OF LORD DALHOUSIE. 359 

wine, strong wine; wine to gladden the heart of ^^^^ 
man. But poured into those old bottles it was sure, 
sooner or later, to create a general explosion. They 
forgot that there were two things necessary to suc- 
cessful government : one, that the measures should be 
good in themselves ; and the other, that they should be 
suited to the condition of the recipients. Intent upon 
the one, they forgot the other, and erred upon the 
side of a progress too rapid and an Englishism too 
refined. 

But at the bottom of this great error were benign 
intentions. Dalhousie and his lieutenants had a 
strong and steadfast faith in the wisdom and bene- 
volence of their measures, and strove alike for the 
glory of the English nation and the welfare of the 
Indian people. There was something grand and even 
good in the very errors of such a man. For there 
was no taint of baseness in them ; no sign of any- 
thing sordid or self-seeking. He had given himself 
up to the public service, resolute to do a great work, 
and he rejoiced with a noble pride in the thought 
that he left behind him a mightier empire than he 
had found, that he had brought new countries and 
strange nations under the sway of the British sceptre, 
and sown the seeds of a great civilisation. To do 
this, he had made unstinting sacrifice of leis-ire, ease, 
comfort, health, and the dear love of wedded life, 
and he carried home with him, in a shattered frame 
and a torn heart, in the wreck of a manhood at its 
very prime, mortal wounds nobly received in a great 
and heroic encounter. 

Great always is the interest which attaches to the 
question of succession ; greatest of all when such a 
ruler as Dalhousie retires from the scene. Who was 
to take the place of this great and successful states- 



360 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

185C. man? Who was to carry out to its final issue the 
grand policy which he had so brilliantly inaugurated ? 
This was the question in all men's mouths as the old 
year passed away and the new year dawned upon 
India ; in some sort a remarkable year, for Avas it 
not the centenary of the great disaster of the Black 
Hole which had brought Olive's avenging army to 
Bengal ? Ever at such times is there much talk of 
the expected advent of some member of the English 
Cabinet, some successful Colonial Governor, or some 
great Lord little experienced in statesmanship, of 
high lineage and dilapidated fortune. And so now 
there was the wonted high tide of speculation and 
conjecture, wild guesses and moonshine rumours of 
all kinds, from dim possibilities to gigantic nonsenses, 
until at last there came authentic tidings to India 
that the choice had fallen on Her Majesty's Post- 
master-General, one of the younger members of Lord 
Palmerston's Cabinet. 



Antecedents Scarcely within bounds of possibility was it, that, 
Cauiiinf^. 1^1 ^^^ midst of SO great an epidemic of faith in Lord 
Dalhousie, England could send forth a statesman to 
succeed him, whom her Anglo-Indian sons would not 
receive with ominous head-shakings, denoting grave 
doubts and anxious misgivings. Another great man, 
it was said, was needed to understand, to appreciate, 
to maintain the policy of the hero whom they so glori- 
fied. But they knew little or nothing of Viscount 
Canning, except that he was the bearer of a great 
1S22. name. Thirty-four years before, all England had 
been talking about the acceptance of the Governor- 
Generalship by this man's father. There were a 



EARLY CAREER OF LORD CANNING. 361 

few, then, who, looking at the matter solely from 1856. 
an Indian point of view, exulted in the thought that 
one who had done such good service at the Board of 
Control, and whose abilities were known to be of the 
very highest order, was about to devote some of the 
best years of his life to the government of our great 
Eastern empire. There was another and a baser 
few, who, festering with jealousies, and animosities, 
and dishonourable fears, joyed most of all that they 
should see his face no more for years, or perhaps for 
ever. But the bulk of the English people deplored 
his approaching departure from among them, because 
they felt that the country had need of his services, 
and could ill bear the loss of such a man. And it 
was a relief to them when the sad close of Lord 
Castlereagh's career brought George Canning back 
from the visit, which was to have been his farewell, 
to Liverpool, to take his place again in the great 
Council of the nation. 

Great, also, was the relief to George Canning 
himself — great for many reasons ; the greatest, per- 
haps, of all, that he was very happy in his family. 
In the first year of the century he had married a 
lady, endowed with a considerable share of the 
world's Avealth, but with more of that better wealth 
which the world cannot give ; the daughter and co- 
heiress of an old general officer named Scott. No 
man could have been happier in his domestic life; 
and domestic happiness is domestic virtue. Blind to 
the attractions of that Society in which he was so 
pre-eminently formed to shine, he found measureless 
delight in the companionship of his wife and children. 
And as an Indian life is more or less a life of separa- 
tion, it was now a joy to him to think that the brief 



362 



OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 



Gloucester 



J85G. vision of Government House, Calcutta, had been re- 
placed by the returning realities of the English fire- 
side.* 

At this time the great statesman had a son in his 
" °^' * tenth year, at school with Mr. Carmalt, of Putney, 
on the banks of the Thames. He was the third son 
born to George Canning ;f born during what w^as 
perhaps the happiest period of his father's life, his 
residence at Gloucester Lodge. This was the boy's 
birthplace. Lying between Brompton and Kensing- 
ton, it was at that time almost in the country. There 
w^as not, perhaps, a pleasanter place near Town. It 
had a strange, memorable history, too, and it was 
among the notabilities of suburban London. In the 
days of Ranelagh, it had been, under the name of 
the Florida Gardens, a lesser rival to that fashionable 
haunt ; and from this state, after an interval of de- 
sertion and decay, it had developed into a royal 
residence.^ The Duchess of Gloucester bought the 
Gardens, built there a handsome Italian villa, lived 
and died there, and, passing away, bequeathed her 
interest in the estate to tlie Princess Sophia, who 
sold it to Mr. Canning. And there, in this pleasant 
umbrageous retreat, on the 14th of December, 1812, 
was born the third son of George Canning, who, in 
due course, w^as christened Charles John. 

In 1822, as I have said, when George Canning 



1807. 



Tlie Putney 
School. 



* "The unsullied purity of Mr. 
Cannino's domestic life," says his 
last and pleasantest biographer, " and 



t At this time Charles was the 
second surviving son. The eldest, 
George Charles, born in April, 1801, 



his love of domestic pleasures (for died in March, 1820. The second 
after liis marriage he seldom ex- brother was in the navy. 



tended his intercourse with general 
society beyond tliose occasions which 



I See Bell's Life of Canning, 
chapter x., which contains an ani- 



his station rendered unavoidable), mated sketch of tlie early histoiy of 

were rewarded by as much virtue Gloucester Lodge, and of the social 

and devotion as ever graced the and domestic environments of the 

home of an English statesman." — great statesman's residence there. 
BeWs Life of Canning. 



EARLY CAREER OF LORD CANNING. 363 

woke from his brief dream of Indian vice-regal power 1850. 
to take the seals of the Foreign Office, this boy 
Charles was under the scholastic care of Mr. Carmalt, 
of Putney. In those days his establishment enjoyed 
a great reputation. It was one of the largest and 
best private schools in the neighbourhood of London, 
perhaps in the whole kingdom, and as the sons of our 
highest noblemen mingled there with those of our 
middle-class gentry, not a bad half-way house to the 
microcosm of Eton or Harrow. The impression which 
Charles Canning made upon the minds of his school- 
fellows was, on the whole, a favourable one. He was 
not a boy of brilliant parts, or of any large popu- 
larity ; but he was remembered long afterwards as 
one who, in a quiet, unostentatious way, made it 
manifest to ordinary observers that there was, in 
schoolboy language, " something in him." One, 
whose letter is now before me, and who was with 
him for nearly two years in the same room at the 
Putney school, remembered, after a lapse of more 
than a third part of a century, the admiration with 
which he then regarded young Canning's "youthful 
indications of talent, and amiable and attractive 
manners." 

Two years after George Canning's surrender of the Etoa 
Governor- Generalship, his son Charles left Mr. Car- 
malt's and went to Eton. Eton was very proud of the 
father's great reputation, and eager to embrace the 
son ; for, verily, George Canning had been an Etonian 
of Etonians, and had done as much, as a scholar and 
a wit, to make Eton flourish, as any man of his age. 
It was, perhaps, therefore, in a spirit of pure grati- 
tude and veneration, and with no "hope of future 
favours," that worthy Provost Goodall, than whom 
perhaps no man ever had a keener appreciation botii 



364 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. of scholarship and of wit, on intimation made to him 
that George Canning wished his son to be entered as 
an oppidan, sent Mr. Chapman, one of the masters of 
the school,* who had been selected as the boy's tutor, 
to examine him at Gloucester Lodge. These exami- 
nations, which determine the place in the school 
which the boy is to take, are commonly held in the 
tutor's house at Eton, not beneath the parental roof. 
But the Minister's son was examined in his father's 
library and in his father's presence at Gloucester 
Lodge ; a double trial, it may be thought, of the 
young student's nerve, and not provocative of a suc- 
cessful display of scholarship. But it was success- 
ful.! Charles Canning was declared to be fit for the 
fourth form, and on the 4th of September, 1824, he 
commenced his career. It is on record that he was 
" sent up for good" for his proficiency in Latin verse. 
It is on record, also, if the recording minister at 
Eton does not kindly blot out such traces of boyish 
error, that he was also sent up for bad ; in more cor- 
rect Etonian phraseology, "in the bill," marked for 
the flogging block. And it is traditional that the 
avenging hand of Head-master Keate was sometimes 
stayed by a tender reluctance to apply the birch to 
the person of Secretary Canning's son. On the whole, 
perhaps, it is historically true that, at Eton, he had 
no very marked reputation of any kind. He was 
good-looking, and a gentleman, which goes for some- 
thing ; but I do not know that he was a great rower, 

* Afterwards Bishop of Colombo; his proficiency, and tlie Bishop now 

now retired. remembers the anxiety with which 

f I am indebted for this incident the fatlier watched the essay of liis 

to Sir Robert Phillimore, Queen's son, and the smile of approval wliich 

Advocate. The memorandiim from jjreeted his reading of the rather dif- 

which it is taken adds : " The well- licult transition, * Quos ego — sed 

known description of the storm in motos,' &c., and the final *Not so 

tiie first jEneid, ' Inteiea magno had/ which followed at the close of 

niisceri murmure pontum,' &c., was the whole translation." 
tlic passage chosen for the trial of 



EARLY CAREER OF LORD CANNING. 365 

a great cricketer, or a great swimmer, or was in any 1856. 
sense an athlete of the first water and the admira- 
tion of his companions ; and, scholastically, it is re- 
membered of him that he had '' a reputation rather 
for intelligence, accuracy, and painstaking, than for 
refined scholarship, or any remarkable powers of 
composition." 

But on passing away from Eton, the stature of his 
mind was soon greatly enlarged. At the close of 
1827, having risen to the Upper division of the fifth 
form, he received the parting gifts of his school- 
fellows ; and soon afterwards became the private 
pupil of the Rev. John Shore, a nephew of Sir John 
Shore, Governor-General of India, and known to a 
later generation as Lord Teignmouth. This worthy 
Christian gentleman and ripe scholar lived, but with- 
out Church preferment, at Potton, a quiet little 
market- town in Bedfordshire, receiving pupils there 
of the better sort. Among the inmates of his house 
was the grandson of the first Lord Harris, with whom 
Charles Canning entered into bonds of friendship, 
riveted at Oxford, strengthened in public life at 
home, and again by strange coincidence in India, 
and broken only by death. Here, doubtless, he 
made great progress in scholarship. Perhaps the 
death of his father, and the after-honours which August 8. 
were conferred on the family, and, more than all, the ^^^^' 
subsequent calamitous end of his elder brother,* 
awakened within him a sense of the responsibilities 
of his position, and roused him to new exertions. 
Though born the third in succession of George Can- 
ning's sons, he was now the eldest, the only one. He 
and his sister alone survived. He was now the heir 
to a peerage, sufiiciently, though not splendidly, en- 

* William Pitt Cannin*:^, then a drowned while bathing at Madeira, 
Ca{>tain in the llo^'al Navy, was in September, 1828. 



366 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1850. dowed, and there was a public career before him. 
He applied himself to his books.* 
Oxford. His next step was to the University. In Decem- 

ber, 182j8, he was entered on the roll as a Student of 
Christ Church, Oxford, as his father had been en- 
tered just forty years before. Among the fore- 
most of his fellow-students were Mr. Gladstone, Mr. 
Bruce, and Mr. Robert Phillimore,f all of whom 
lived to take parts, more or less prominent, in public 
affairs. Among other members of the same distin- 
guished house, at that time, was the young Lord 
Lincoln, heir to the Dukedom of Newcastle, and the 
representative of the great Scotch House of Ramsay, 
ennobled by the Earldom of Dalhousie. But the 
most intimate of all his associates was the present 
Lord De Tabley, with whom he lived in the closest 
bonds of friendship to the latest day of his life. By 
him, and a few other chosen companions, he was 
dearly loved and much respected ; but neither achiev- 
ing nor seeking extensive popularity among his co- 
temporaries, he was regarded by the outer University 
world as a man of a reserved and distant manner, 
and of a somewhat cold and unimpulsive tempera- 
ment. The few in the inner circle knew that he was 
not cold ; knew that he had a true loving heart, very 
loyal and constant in its affections ; knew that in the 
society of his familiar friends he had a pleasant, a 
genial, and sometimes a playful manner, that he had 
a fine scholarly taste, a fund of quiet humour, a keen 
appreciation of character, and that he was all in all a 
delightful companion. They had great hope, too, of 
his future career, though he did not seem to be ambi- 

* It need scarcely be indicated f The present (1864) Chancellor 

that the widow of George Canning, of the Exchequer ; the late Lord 

on his deatli, was created a Vis- Elgin, Governor-General of India; 

countess, with remainder to his eldest and the present Queen's Advocate, 
son. 



EARLY CAREER OF LORD CANNING. 367 

tious; nay, rather, it appeared to those who closely 3856. 
observed him, that he was haunted and held back by 
the thought of his father's renown, and a diffidence of 
his own capacity to maintain the glories of the name. 
But, although he did not care to take part in the 
proceedings of debating societies, and, apparently, 
took small interest in the politics of the great world, 
he was anxious that at least his University career 
should do no dishonour to his lineage, and that if he 
could not be a great statesman, he might not stain 
the scholarly reputation enjoyed by two generations 
of Cannings before him. He strove, therefore, and 
with good results, to perfect himself in the classic 
languages ; and even more assiduous were his endea- 
vours to obtain a mastery over his own language. 
At an early -age he acquired a thoroughly good Eng- 
lish style ; not resonant or pretentious ; not splintery 
or smart ; but pure, fluent, transparent, with tJie 
meaning ever visible beneath it, as pebbles beneatti 
the clearest stream. 

His efforts bore good fruit. In 1831, he wrote a 
Latin Prize Poem, on the " Captivity of Caractacus*"' 
and recited it in the great hall of Christ Church, 
standing beneath his father's picture.* And in the 

* I am indebted for ibis to Sir in tbe prime of youth, recalling by 
Robert Phillimore. I give the inci- his eminently handsome countenance 
dent in his own words: "In the the noble features of the portrait, 
year 1831, he won the Christ Church while repeating the classical prize 
prize for Latin verse. Tiie subject poem, which would have gladdened 
was ' Caractacus Captivus Romam in- his father's heart. Generally speak- 
greditur.' The verses were, as usual, ing, the resident members of Ciirist 
recited in the hall. It was a remark- Church alone compose the audience 
able scene. In that magnificent when the prize poem is recited. But 
banqueting-room are hung the por- on this occasion there was a stranger 
traits of students w^ho have reflected present — tlie old faithful friend of 
honour upon the House which reared Mr. Canning, his staunch political 
them by the distinctions which tiiey adherent through life — Mr. Sturges 
have won in after life. Underneath Bourne. He had travelled fro'Ji 
the portrait of George Canning, the London for the purpose of witness- 
recollection of whose brilliant career ing the first considerable achiev 
and untimely end was still fresh in ment of the younger Canning." 
the memory of men, stood the son, MS. Memorandum. 



368 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. Easter term of 1833 he took his degree, with high 
honours : a first class in Classics, and a second in 
Mathematics. He was then in his twenty-iirst year ; 
and Parliament would soon be open to him. But he 
was in no hurry to enter upon the realities of public 
life. He was diffident of his oratorical powers ; he 
was constitutionally shy ; and it did not appear to 
him that the House of Commons was a theatre in 
which he was ever likely to make a successful ap- 
pearance. Moreover, he had other work in hand at 
that time ; other yearnings to keep down any young 
ambitions that might be mounting within him. Love 
and courtship filled up a sweet interlude in his life, 
as they do in the lives of most men whose story is 
worth telling ; and, in due course, they bore the rich 
fruit of happy wedlock. On the 5th of September, 
1835, the Honourable Charles John Canning espoused 
the Honourable Charlotte Stuart, eldest daughter of 
Lord Stuart De Rothesay ; a lady of a serene and 
gentle beauty, and many rare gifts of mind. 

But, after a year of wedded life, he was prevailed 
upon to enter Parliament; and in August, 1836, he 
was returned for Warwick. In that month, however. 
Parliament was prorogued ; and on its reassembling 
at the commencement of the following year he was 
content to be a silent member. His opportunities, 
indeed, were very few, for his whole career in the 
House of Commons extended over a period of little 
more than six weeks. During the month of February 
and the early part of March he attended in his place 
with praiseworthy regularity.* But, on the 15th of 
the latter month, his mother. Viscountess Canning, 
died ; and, on the 24th of April, he took his seat in 
the House of Lords. 

* His nairie is to be found in all Government, but more frequently 
the principal division lists. He voted w ith it. 
sometimes against Lord Melbo-une's 



EARLY CAREER OF LORD CANNING. 369 

For nearly twenty years lie sate in that House, 1S3G-56. 
taking no very prominent part in the debates, but 
doing his duty in a quiet, unostentatious Avay, and 
gradually making for himself a reputation as a con- 
scientious, painstaking young statesman, who might 
some day do good service to his country and honour 
to his great name. His political opinions, which 
were shared by most of his distinguished cotempo- 
raries at Christ Church, were charactei-ised by that 
chastened liberalism which had found its chief ex- 
ponent in Sir Robert Peel; and when, in 1841, that 
great Parliamentary leader w^as invited to form a 
Ministry, Lord Canning, Lord Lincoln, and Mr. 
Gladstone were offered, and accepted, official seats. 
The seals of the Foreign Office had been placed in 
the hands of Lord Aberdeen. He had a high opi- 
nion of, and a personal regard for. Lord Canning, 
and there was no one whom the veteran statesman 
wished so much to associate with himself in office as 
George Canning's son. About the same time another 
distinguished member of the House of Lords was also 
moved by a strong desire to have the benefit of the 
young statesman's official co-operation and personal 
companionship. This was Lord Ellenborough, who, 
on the formation of the Peel Ministry, had been ap- 
pointed President of the Board of Control, but who 
had subsequently been selected to succeed Lord Auck- 
land as Governor-General of India. He offered to 
take Canning with him in the capacity of Private 
Secretary. 

Creditable as this offer was to the discernment of 
Lord Ellenborough, and made in perfect sincerity, it 
was one little likely to be accepted by a man of high 
social position, good political prospects, and a suffi- 
cient supply of the world's wealth. Lord Canning 

2b 



370 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

I836-5G, elected to remain in England, and entered official life 
as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He 
liked his work ; he did it well ; and he had the entire 
confidence of his chief. But he did not take an active 
part in the debates and discussions of the House of 
Lords. The presence, in the same Chamber, of the 
Chief of his Department relieved him from the re- 
sponsibility of ministerial explanations and replies, 
and his constitutional reserve forbade all unnecessary 
displays. It was not, indeed, until the Session of 
1846 found him in the office of Chief Commissioner 
of Woods and Forests, that he took any prominent 
part in the business of the House. If the position 
which he then held afforded no opportunity for the 
development of his powers either as an orator or a 
debater, it kept him continually in Parliamentary 
harness, and the training was of service to him. It 
lasted, however, but a little time. At the end of 
June, 184G, Sir Robert Peel and his colleagues re- 
signed; and a Whig Cabinet was formed under the 
leadership of Lord John Russell. 

Lord Canning was then " in opposition ;" but, in 
heart, he was a Liberal, and willing to support 
liberal measures, without reference to the distinc- 
tions of party. When, therefore, in May, 1848, 
Lord Lansdowne moved the second reading of the 
Jewish Disabilities Bill, Lord Canning was the first 
to speak in support of it. He answered Lord Ellen- 
borough, who had moved the amendment, and he 
voted against all his old colleagues then in the Upper 
House, with the exception of Lord Hardin ge. But 
in 1850 he supported, in a speech displaying an entire 
mastery of the subject, the resolution of Lord Derby 
condemnatory of the Foreign Policy of Lord Pal- 
merston ; and he spoke against the Ecclesiastical 
Titles Bill, introduced by Lord John Russell. So 



EARLY CAREER OF LORD CANNING. o71 

little, indeed, was he considered to be pledged to any 183G-5G. 
party, that when the Russell Cabinet resigned in the 
spring of 1851, and Lord Derby was invited to form 
an administration, the great Conservative leader saw 
no reason why he should not invite Canning to be- 
come a member of it. The offer then made was a 
tempting one, for it was the offer of a seat in the 
Cabinet second in importance only to that of the 
First Minister. To the son of Georo-e Cannincr it 
was especially tempting, for it was the offer of the 
seals of the Foreign Office. In that office the father 
had built up his reputation, and the son had already 
laid the foundation of an honourable career of states- 
manship. It was the department which, above all 
others. Lord Canning best knew and most desired. 
He had served a long apprenticeship in it, and if his 
humility suggested any doubts of his capacity to 
direct its affairs, they must have been removed by 
the manner in which he was invited to take their 
direction. 

The offer now made to him was made through his 
old official chief, Lord Aberdeen, who pressed him to 
accept it. But there were many grave considerations 
which caused him to hesitate. He had sat for some 
years on the same ministerial bench with Lord 
Derby, but the latter had separated himself from his 
party, and the cause of the disruption was the liberal 
commercial policy of Sir Robert Peel, in favour of 
which Canning had freely declared his opinions. He 
had condemned the foreign policy of the Whig party ; 
but, on the other hand, there were matters of home 
government, in which his liberality was far in ad- 
vance of the opinions of Lord Derby and his col- 
leagues ; and, on the whole, he felt that lie could not 
honestly and consistently support the Administration 

2 B 2 



372 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1836-56. whicli he was invited to enter. He judged rightly, 
and in such a case he judged wisely. Lord Derby 
failed to construct a Ministry, and the Whigs re- 
sumed office for another year. This was the turning- 
point of Lord Canning s career ; and it is impossible 
to say how different might have been the story which 
I am now about to write, if these overtures had been 
accepted. 

In the following year, Lord Derby again endea- 
voured, and with better success, to form a Ministry, 
but its career was of brief duration. In November, 
its place was tilled by an Administration under the 
premiership of Lord Aberdeen, composed of the lead- 
ino^ members of the Governments both of Sir Robert 
Peel and Lord John RusselL In this Coalition 
Ministry Lord Canning held the office of Postmaster- 
General. Though held by many a distinguished 
man, the post was not one to satisfy the desires of an 
ambitious one. But he Avas not disappointed or dis- 
couraged. He knew the difficulties which lay in the 
path of his leader,* and he addressed himself cheer- 
fully and assiduously to his work, with a steadfast 
resolution to elevate the importance of the appoint- 
ment he held, by doing in it the largest possible 
amount of public good. In this office he had first 
an opportunity of displaying that high conscientious 
courage which bears up and steers right on, in spite 
of the penalties and mortifications of temporary un- 
popularit}^ What was wrong he endeavoured to set 
right ; and knowing how much depended on the per- 
sonal exertions of individual men, he strove, even 

* In a " coalition ministry" there arranirpments then made the seals of 

is necessarily an exceptional number the roicign Office fell, in the first 

of claiinauts for the hij^lier offices iustauce, to Lord Jobu Russell, 
with seats iii tlie Cabinet. In the 



. EARLY CAREER OF LORD CANNING. 373 

at the expense of certain very clamorous vested inte- IS 36-50. 
rests, to obtain the utmost possible amount of com- 
petency for the performance of all the higher depart- 
mental duties. During his administration of the 
Post-office many important reforms were instituted, 
and much progress made in good work already com- 
menced. So effectually, indeed, had he mastered all 
the complicated details of the department, that when 
the Coalition Ministry Avas dissolv^ed and a new Go- 
vernment formed under Lord Palmerston, the public 
interests required that there should be no change at 
the Post-office ; so Lord Canning was reappointed to 
his old office, but with further acknowledgment of 
his good services in the shape of a seat in the Cabinet. 
But it was not ordered that he should hold the office 
much longer. There was more stirring work in store 
for him. His old friend and cotemporary, Lord Dal- 
housie, was coming home from India, and it was 
necessary that a new Govern or- General should be 
appointed in his place. Practically the selection, in 
such cases, was made by the Imperial Government, 
but constitutionally the appointment emanated from 
the East India Company. The President of the 
Board of Control and the Chairman of the Court 
of Directors commonly took counsel together, when 
the Cabinet had chosen their man ; and then the 
nomination was formally submitted to the Court. 
There is always, in such cases, much internal doubt 
and conflict among those with whom the selection 
rests, and much speculation and discussion in the 
outer world. It was believed in this instance, that 
some member of the Ministry would be appointed ; 
but people said in England, as they said in India, 
that it would be no easy thing to find a fit successor 
for Lord Dalhousie ; and when at last it transpired 



374 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1855-56. that the (choice had fallen on Lord Canning, men 
shook their heads and asked each other whether there 
was anything great about him but his name. In 
Parliament the propriety of the appointment was 
questioned by some noisy speakers, and there was a 
general feeling in society that the appointment was 
rather a mistake. But those who knew Lord Can- 
ning — those especially who had worked with him — 
knew that it was no mistake. They knew that there 
was the stuff in him of which great administrators 
are made. 
Appointment On the first day of August a Court of Directors 
iior-Generll- ' "^^^^ held at the India House, and Lord Canning was 
bhip, 1855. introduced to take the accustomed oath. On the 
evening of that day the Company gave, in honour of 
their new servant, one of those magnificent enter- 
tainments at which it was their wont to bid God- 
speed to those who were going forth to do their work. 
Those banquets were great facts and great oppor- 
tunities. It was discovered soon afterwards that the 
expenditure upon them was a profligate waste of the 
public money. But the Government of a great em- 
pire, spending nothing upon the splendid foppery of 
a Court, was justified in thinking that, without 
offence, it might thus do honour to its more distin- 
guished servants, and that, not the turtle and the 
venison, but the hospitality and the courtesy of the 
Directors, thus publicly bestowed upon the men who 
had done their work well in civil or miUtary life, 
would find ample recompense in increased loyalty 
and devotion, and more energetic service. Many a 
gallant soldier and many a wise administrator carried 
back with him to India the big card of the East 
India Company inviting him to dinner at the London 
Tavern, and religiously preserved it as one of ilu' 



THE FAREWELL BANQUET. 375 

most cherished records of an honourable career. 1855-56. 
There were many, too, who hoarded among their 
dearest recollections the memory of the evening when 
they saw, perhaps for the first and the last time, 
England's greatest statesmen and warriors, and heard 
them gravely discourse on the marvel and the miracle 
of our Indian Empire. Nor was it a small thing 
that a man selected to govern a magnificent de- 
pendency beyond the seas, should thus, in the pre- 
sence of his old and his new masters, and many of 
his coadjutors in the great work before him, publicly 
accept his commission, and declare to the people in 
the West and in the East the principles which were 
to regulate his conduct and to shape his career. The 
words uttered on these occasions rose far above the 
ordinary convivial level of after-dinner speeches. 
There was a gravity and solemnity in them, appre- 
ciated not merely by those who heard them spoken, 
but by thousands also, to whom the Press conveyed 
them, in the country which they most concerned; 
and on the minds of the more intelligent Natives the 
fact of this grand ceremonial of departure made a 
deep impression, and elevated in their imaginations 
the dignity of the coming ruler. 

Seldom or never had this ceremonial assumed a 
more imposing character than that which celebrated 
the appointment of Lord Canning to the Governor- 
Generalship of India. In the great Banqueting Hall 
of the London Tavern were assembled on that 1st 
of August many members of the Cabinet, including 
among them some of Canning's dearest friends ; others 
besides of his old companions and fellow-students; 
and all the most distinguished of the servants of the 
Company at that time in the country. Mr. Elliot 
Macnaghten, Chairman of the East India Company^ 



376 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1855-6G. presided, and after dinner proposed the accustomed 
toasts. It "svas natural and right that, when doing 
honour to the newly-appointed Governor-General, the 
speaker should pay a fitting tribute to the distin- 
guished statesman who was then bringing his work 
to a close ; it was natural and graceful that tribute 
should be paid also to the worth of the elder Canning, 
who had done India good service at home, and had 
been selected to hold the great office abroad w^hich 
his son was proceeding to fill ; but there was some- 
thing to a comparatively untried man perilous in 
such associations, and the younger Canning, with 
instinctive modesty, shrunk from the invidious sug- 
gestion. Perhaps there were some present who drew 
comparisons, unfavourable to the son, between the 
early careers of the two Cannings, which had entitled 
them to this great distinction ; but when the younger 
stood up to speak, every one was struck — the many 
judging by busts and pictures, and the few recalling 
the living likeness of George Canning — by his great 
resemblance to his father. The singularly handsome 
face, the intellectual countenance, and, above all, the 
noble '' Canning brow," like a block of white marble, 
bespoke no common capacity for empire, and gave 
emphatic force to the words he uttered. He said, 
after the usual expression of thanks for the kind 
words spoken, and the kind reception accorded to 
them, that the kindness which he had received had 
not created any delusion in his mind, for w^hether he 
contemplated the magnitude of the task that awaited 
him, or the great achievements of the distinguished 
men who had preceded him, he was painfully sensible 
that the labourer was unequal to the great work that 
had been entrusted to his hands. He was not 
ashamed to confess that there were times when he 



THE FAREWELL BANQUET. 377 

was tempted to shrink from the responsibility that 1855-56. 
awaited him. But this feeling, he added, was not 
inconsistent with his determination to devote all the 
energies of his mind, every hour, nay, every minute 
of his time, every thought and every inspiration, to 
the discharge of the duties which he had that day ac- 
cepted from the hands of the Company. There were, 
however, other considerations, which had greatly re- 
assured and encouraged him : " You have," he said, 
turning to the Chairman, " assured me, this day, of 
what you rightly describe as the generous confidence 
and co-operation of the Court of Directors. I thank 
you for that assurance, and I rely on it implicitly, 
for I know that the body of which you are the head 
are, wherever they bestow their confidence, no nig- 
gards in supporting those who honestly and faith- 
fully serve them." And then, not perhaps without a 
knowledge of what, more than a quarter of a century 
before, his father had said on a similar occasion,* he 
added, " I feel that I can also rely on the cordial 
support and sympathy of my noble friend at the head 
of the Government, and of all those colleagues with 
whom I have had the proud satisfaction of serving as 
a Minister of the Crown, but, above all, I delight in 
the co-operation — for on that I must daily and hourly 
rely — of those two admirable bodies, the Civil Service 
and the Army of India. I hardly know whether 
there is any feature of our Government, any portion 
of our institutions, upon which Englishmen may look 
with more honest exultation than those two noble 

* The occasion alluded to was the rope the existence of any monarchy 
farewell banquet given by the East which, within a given time, has pro- 
India Company to Sir John Malcolm, duced so many men of the fust 
on his appointment to the govern- talents, in civil and military life, as 
nient of Bombay. Then it was that India has first trained for herself, 
George Canning said: "There can- and then given to their native 
not be found in the history of Eu- country.'* 



378 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1855-56. branches of our Public Service. The men of those 
branches have done much for the advancement of 
India, and have sent forth from their ranks men who 
were efficient in war and peace, in numbers of which 
any monarchy in Europe might be proud, and w^ho 
have rescued their countrymen from charges formerly, 
and not unjustly, levelled against them of dealing 
sometimes too harshly with those whom they were 
bound to succour and protect. Sir, it is the posses- 
sion of such men which enables you to exhibit a 
spectacle unequalled in the world's history — that of 
a hundred and fifty millions of people submitting in 
peace and contentment, in a country teeming with 
wealth, to the government of strangers and aliens." 

Then, after a few more words on the high charac- 
ter of the Services, and a brief declaration of the fact 
that he assumed office " without a single promise or 
pledge to any expectant," he proceeded with increased 
gravity and solemnity of utterance, almost, indeed, 
as one under the spell of prophecy : "I know not 
what course events may take. I hope and pray that 
we may not reach the extremity of war. I wish for 
a peaceful time of office, but I cannot forget that in 
our Indian Empire that greatest of all blessings de- 
pends upon a greater variety of chances and a more 
precarious tenure than in any other quarter of the 
globe. We must not forget that in the sky of India, 
serene as it is, a small cloud may arise, at first no 
bigger than a man's hand, but which, growing larger 
and larger, may at last threaten to burst, and over- 
whelm us with ruin. What has happened once may 
happen again. The disturbing causes have diminished 
certainly, but they are not dispelled. We have still 
discontented and heterogeneous peoples united under 
our sway ; we have still neighbours before whom we 



THE FAREWELL BANQUET. 379 

cannot altogetlier lay aside our watchfulness ; and we is 5 5 -5 5. 
have a frontier configuration that renders it possible 
that in any quarter, at any moment, causes of colli- 
sion may arise. Besides, so intricate are our relatio: s 
with some subsidiary states, that I doubt whether in 
an empire so vast and so situated it is in the power 
of the wisest Government, the most peaceful and the 
most forbearing, to command peace. But if we can- 
not command, we can at least deserve it, by taking 
care that honour, good faith, and fair dealing are on 
our side ; and then if, in spite of us, it should become 
necessary to strike a blow, we can strike with a clear 
conscience. With blows s-o dealt the struggle must 
be short and the issue not doubtful. But I gladly 
dismiss from my mind apprehensions that may not 
be realised, and joyfully recognise a large arena of 
peaceful usefulness, in which I. hope for your kind 
assistance and co-operation." 

Equally surprised were the few then present, who 
were familiar with Lord Canning's parliamentary 
utterances, and the many, who had never heard him 
speak, but had been told that he was "no orator;" 
for the speech which they now heard from his lips 
was all that such a speech ought to have been. It was 
impressive rather than impassioned ; slowly spoken, 
with a deliberate gravity, every sentence making 
itself felt, and every word making itself heard in the 
farthest corners of that great Banqueting Hall. 
There were few present in whose estimation the 
speaker had not risen before he resumed his seat; 
few present who did not, years afterwards, remember 
with strong emotion that picture of the little cloud 
rising in an unexpected quarter, and in time obscur- 
ing the firmament and overshadowing the land. 
Some, perhaps, thought also of another speech, thcxi 



380 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1855-56. delivered by a more practised speaker ; for the First 
Minister of the Crowu, on that August evening, let 
fall some memorable words. It was only in common 
course that he should speak of the qualifications of 
his colleague for the high office to which he had been 
appointed ; only in common course that he should 
I express his gratitude to the Company v>dio so mate- 
(rially lightened the cares of the Sovereign and her 
I Ministers. But when Lord Palmerston dwelt on 
: " the sio;nificant fact that, whereas of old all civilisa- 
I tion came from India, through Egypt, now we, who 
were then barbarians, svere carrying back civilisation 
and enlightenment to the parent source," and added, 
" perhaps it might be our lot to confer on the count- 
less millions of India a higher and a holier gift than 
any real human knowledge; but that must be left 
to the hands of time and the gradual improvement 
of the people," he supplemented Lord Canning's pro- 
phecy, though he knew it not, and pointed to the 
quarter from which the little cloud was to arise. 

But although Lord Canning had been sworn in at 
the India House, and had stood before the magnates 
of the land as Governor- General elect, he was still a 
member of the Cabinet and her Majesty's Postmaster- 
General. Parliament was prorogued on the 14th of 
August, and in accordance with that wise official 
usage, which recognises the necessity of holidays no 
less for statesmen than for schoolboys, the Queen's 
Ministers dispersed themselves over the country, and 
Lord Canning went to Scotland. It had been settled 
that he should receive from the hands of Lord Dal- 
housie the reins of Indian Government on the 1st of 
February, 1856, and his arrangements, involving a 
short sojourn in Egypt, and visits to Ceylon, Bombay, 
and Madras, had been made with a view to his arrival 



THE DATE OF SUCCESSION. 381 

at Calcutta on that day. But at Dalhousie's own re- 1855-5G. 
quest, his resignation was subsequently deferred to the 
1st of March. When this request was first made to 
him, Canning thought that the intention of the change 
was simply to allow the old Governor-General more 
time not only to consummate the annexation of Oude, 
but to confront the first difiiculties of the revolution ; 
and it appeared to him, thinking this, that the post- 
ponement might be interpreted alike to his own and 
to his predecessor s disadvantage. It might have been 
said that the new Governor-General shrank from en- 
countering the dangers of the position, or that the 
measure was so distasteful to him, on the score of its 
injustice, that he could not bring himself to put his 
hand to the work Both assumptions would have 
been utterly erroneous. The question of the Annexa - 
tion of O ude had been a Cabinet question, and as a 
member of the Cabinet, Lord Canning had given his 
assent to the policy, which, after much discussion in 
Leadenhall and in Downing-street, found final expres- 
sion in the Court's despatch of the 1 9th of November. 
The policy itself had been already determined, al-i 
though the precise terms of the instructions to be sent 
to the Government of India were still under conside- 
ration, when Dalhousie's proposal reached him ; and 
he was willing to accept all the responsibilities of the 
measure. The proposed delay, therefore, did not at 
first sight please him ; but when, from a later letter, 
he learnt that Dalhousie required a few more weeks of 
office, not for special, but for general purposes ; that 
he needed time to gather up the ends of a large 
number of administrative details, the case was altered, 
and he assented, with the concurrence of the Court of 
Directors, to the change.* 

* " As long," he wrote to the Chairman, " as it turned upon Oude 



382 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

.855-56. A few days aftenvards, Lord Canning turned his 
face again towards the South, to superintend the final 
arrangements for his departure, and to take leave of 
his friends. Thus the month of October and the 
greater part of November were passed ; but not with- 
out some study of Indian questions, some useful train- 
ing for the great work upon which he was about to 
enter. On the 21st of November he Avent by com- 
mand to Windsor, accompanied by Lady Canning, 
who was among her Majesty's cherished friends, and 
on the 23rd returned to London, after taking final 
leave of the Queen. Another day or two, and he had 
commenced his overland journey to the East. From 
the French capital he wrote, on the last day of No- 
vember : "I intended to leave Paris this afternoon, 
but I received notice in the morning that the Emperor 
wished to see me to-morrow, so that it will be Tuesday 
morning (December 4th) before we embark at Mar- 
seilles. We still hope to reach Alexandria on the 
10th." He arrived there, however, not before the 
12th, and after a day's halt pushed on to Cairo, 
where he was received and entertained magnificently 
by orders of the Pacha, who was at that time absent 
from his capital. 

The party consisted of Lord and Lady Canning, 
his nephew Lord Hubert de Burgh,* Captain Bou- 

aloiip, I felt tliat lliere was some will be agreeable and convenient to 
difficulty in makinir the change pro- iiim, and ])robably advantageous to 
posed by Lord Dalhousie, and some the public interests. I hope, there- 
risk of its intention being misrepre- fore, that you will feel no difficulty 
sented to the disadvantage of both in complying with Lord Dalhousie's 
of us. But it is now clear that for wish, by putting olf my succession 
other reasons, apart from Oude, and until the day he names." — Lord 
for the general winding up of the Ccnnnng to Mr. Macnaghtcn, Sep- 
work on his hands, it will be a great tember 20, 1855.— Ji/S. Correspond- 
help to him to have a month more ence. 

time. These are his very words to * xVfterwards Lord Hubert Can- 
ine ; and T cannot hesitate, so far as ning. 
1 am concerned, to do that which 



LORD CANNING IN EGYPT. 883 

verie, A.D.C., and Dr. Leckie. There was abundant 1855-53 
time for an exploration of tlie wonders of Egypt, and, 
as the fine climate of the country invited a protracted 
sojourn there, it was arranged that some weeks should 
be spent in pleasant and profitable excursions, and 
that they should embark at Suez about the middle of 
the month of January. "The Pacha was in Upper 
Egypt until to-day," wrote Lord Canning to Mr. 
Macnaghten, on the 17th of December, "when he 
returned to this neighbourhood, I am to see him 
to-morrow, and on the following day we set out on 
our expedition up the Nile. Thanks to a steamer, 
which the Pacha lends us, we shall be able to accom- 
plish all we wish, and to embark on the Feroze imme- 
diately upon its arrival at Suez, which, according to 
a letter from Lord Dalhousie, that met me at Alex- 
andria, will not be until close upon the 12th of 
January. . . . The magnificence, not to say extrava- 
gance, of our reception here far exceeds anything 
that I had expected. I shall need to be very profuse 
of my thanks to the Pacha to-morrow." 

It would be pleasant to follow Lord Canning and 
his family on their river-voyage, the grateful ex- 
periences of Avhich he has himself recorded, but these 
personal incidents have no connexion with the stern 
story before me, and the temptation, therefore, to 
enlarge upon them must be resisted. The programme 
of his movements given in the above letter to the 
Chairman of the Company, was realised with but 
little departure from the original design. The Go- 
vernor-General elect halted at Aden, where, under 
the guidance of Brigadier Coghlan* — an officer of 
the Company's Artillery, one of those excellent 

* lA-fterwards Sir William Coalilan, K.C.B. 



o8i OUTBREAK OF TUE MUTINY. 

1856. public servants who, partly in a military, partly 
in a diplomatic capacity, represent great interests and 
undertake great responsibilities in the East — Lord 
Canning made his iirst acquaintance with the Sepo}- 
Army of India. From Aden he steamed to Bombay, 
where he arrived on the 28th of January, 1856, and 
first planted his foot on Indian soil. " I found," he 
wrote to Mr. Macnaghten on the 2nd of February, 
*'that Lord Daihousie had given orders that I should 
be received wdth the full honours of Governor-General 
in possession ; and of course I did nothing to check or 
escape from the demonstrations with which we were 
met, though I did not desire or expect them. I have 
been unceasingly busy for two-thirds of every twenty- 
four hours since our arrival ; and by the 5th or 6th, 
I hope to have seen nearly all that calls for ocular in- 
spection in the city and its neighbourhood. We shall 
then embark for Madras ; for I have given up all 
thoughts of stopping at Ceylon, unless to coal, and 
hope to arrive there on the 14th or 15th. I cannot 
sufficiently congratulate myself on having come round 
by this Presidency. It has shown me much that I 
should not easily have learnt otherwise." It was a 
disappointment to him that he had not time to visit 
Ceylon, for his old Eton tutor. Chapman, had de- 
veloped into Bishop of Colombo, and there would 
have been a grand old Etonian pleasure, on both sides, 
in talking over old times. But there was consolation 
in the thought that his friend Lord Harris, his fellow- 
pupil in the Bedfordshire market-town, was Governor 
of Madras. In that presidency he spent a few plea- 
sant days, sojourning at Guindy, and then on the 
25th of February set out to face the realities of 
Indian Government, and steamed up the Bay ot 
Bengal. 



ARRIVAL OF LORD CANNING. 385 

On tlie last day of February, Lord Canning dis- li^ebruarj 29, 
embarked at Calcutta; and, proceeding to Govern- 
ment House, at once took his oaths of office and his 
seat in Council. It is the custom in such cases. No 
time is left for any question to arise as to who is 
Governor- General of India. So brief did the whole 
operation appear to him, that he wrote home that he 
had been sworn in and installed " within five minutes 
lifter touching land." As his dignities and responsi- 
bilities commenced at once, so did his work. At the 
end of his first week of office, he wrote that such had 
been the pressure of public business, that he had 
found time only for " one look out of doors " since he 
arrived. During that first week Lord Dalhousie 
tarried in Calcutta, and the past and future of the 
Government of India were discussed with interest, 
the depths of which were stirred by varying circum- 
stances, between those earnest-minded men ; the one 
all readiness to teach, the other all eagerness to learn. 
Dull and prosaic as its details often appear to Eng- 
lishmen at a distance, it is difficult to describe the 
living interest with which statesmen in India of all 
classes, from the highest to the lowest, perpetually 
regard their work. 

No man ever undertook the office of Governor- First days (t 
General of India under the impression that it would ^^ ^^^ 
be a sinecure. But it is scarcely less true that no 
man, whatever opinion he may have formed in Eng- 
land, ever entered upon its duties without discover- 
ing that he had greatly underrated the extent of its 
labours. The current of work is so strong and so 
continuous ; so many waters meet together to swell 
the stream ; that at first even a strong man trying to 
breast it may feel that he is in danger of being over- 
whelmed. Time lessens the difficulty ; but at the 

2c 



386 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1850. outset, the multiplicity of unfamiliar details distracts 
and bewilders even the sharpest wit and the clearest 
brain ; and the first result is apt to be a chaos. Box 
after box is placed upon the Governor- General's 
table ; and each box is crammed with papers rugged 
with the names of strange men and stranger places, 
and references to unknown events and incomprehen- 
sible states of society. By some means or other, he 
must master the antecedents of every case that comes 
before him for decision ; and there are often very 
intricate cases purposely left for his decision, that he 
may not be embarrassed by the judgments of his pre- 
decessor. Week after week goes by and little im- 
pression is made upon this pile of work. " Another 
fortnight is gone," wrote Lord Canning towards the 
end of March, " and I am beginning to gather up by 
slow degrees the threads of business, as it passes 
before me ; but it is severe work to have to o^ive so 
much time to the bygones of almost every question 
that comes up ; and some weeks more must pass 
before I shall feel myself abreast of current events.'* 
There was a strong conscientiousness within the new 
Governor- General which would not suffer him to 
pass anything lightly over, and he endeavoured to 
understand all that came before him even at the risk 
of some inconvenient delays. 

So he did not rush at his work ; but quietly con- 
fronted it, and w^as in no haste to impress people with 
a sense of the profundity of his wisdom, and the 
greatness of his self-reliance. He knew that he had 
much to learn, and he adopted the best means of 
learning it ; for he invited all the chief agents of his 
Government, scattered over the country, especially 
those who were representing British interests at the 
Native Courts, to correspond confidentially with him 



THE SUPREME COUNCIL. 387 

on matters relating to their respective charges; an ^^56. 
invitation which gave to every man thus addressed 
full liberty to declare his sentiments and to expound 
his views. And thus he escaped the danger on the 
one hand of surrendering his own judgment, by suc- 
cumbing to the influence of some two or three public 
functionaries immediately attached to the Executive 
Government, and, on the other, of the over-confident 
exercise of a dominant self-will rejecting all external 
aids, and refusing to walk by other men's experiences. 
He knew that there was no roysl road to a knowledge 
of India ; and he was well content that the first year 
of his administration should be unostentatiousl}^ de- 
voted to the great duty of learning his work. 

There were able men, too, at his elbow to assist Tiie Council, 
him to a correct knowledge of facts, and to the 
formation of sound opinions. The Supreme Council 
consisted at that time of General John Low, Mr. 
Dorin, Mr. John Peter Grant, and Mr. Barnes Pea- 
cock. Of the first I can say little in this place that General Lew; 
has not been already said. The only charge laid 
against him by the assailants of the Government was, 
that he was well stricken in years. But, although 
one who had fought beside Malcolm at Mehidpore, 
and then not in his first youth, must have lost some 
of the physical energy that animated him in his 
prime, his intellect was unimpaired. Ceasing to be a 
man of action, he had subsided gracefully into the 
condition of a councillor, the Nestor of the Political 
Service, a veteran without a stain. ISTo man had so 
large an acquaintance with the Native Courts of 
India ; no man knew the temper of the people better 
than John Low. He could see with their eyes, and 
speak with their tongues, and read with their under- 
standings. And, therefore, he looked with some dis- 

2 c 2 



388 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

^5^^- may at the wide-spread Englishism of the Dalhousie 
school, and sorrowfully regarded the gradual dying 
out of the principles in which he had been nurtured 
and trained, and to which, heedless of their unpopu- 
larity, he clung with honest resolution to the last. 
Dalhousie had too often disregarded his counsel ; but 
he had always respected the man. And now Canning 
equally admired the personal character of his col- 
league, but was not equally minded to laugh his 
principles to scorn. 

Mr.Doriu. q£ ^^^ ^^^ Bengal civilians who sat in that 
Council, it may be said that the one owed his posi- 
tion there apparently to chance, the other to his un- 
questionable abilities. Mr. Dorin was not a man of 

1 great parts ; he was not a man of high character. If 

he had any official reputation, it was in the capacity 
of a financier ; and finance was at that time the 
weakest point of our Government. He had limited 
acquaintance with the country, and but small know- 
ledge of the people. He had no earnestness ; no en- 
thusiasm ; no energy. He had a genius for making 
himself comfortable, and he had no superfluous ac- 
tivities of head or heart to mar his success in that 
particular direction. He had supported the policy 
of Lord Dalhousie, and had recorded in his time 
a number of minutes expressing in two emphatic 
words, which saved trouble and gained favour, his 
concurrence with the most noble the Govern or- Gene- 
ral ; and now if the new ruler was not likely to 
find in him a very serviceable colleague, there Avas 
no greater chance of his being found a troublesome 
one. 

John Peter In John Grant the Governor-General might have 

'^^^^' found both. He was many years younger than his 

brother civilian, but he had done infinitely more 

work. In him, with an indolent sleepy manner was 



JOHN PETER GRANT. 389 

strangely combined extraordinary activity of mind. -iSSS, 
He was one of the ablest public servants in the coun- 
try. With some hereditary claim to distinction, he 
had been marked out from the very commencement 
of his career, no less by a favourable concurrence of 
external circumstances than by his own inherent 
qualifications, for the highest official success. No 
young civilian in his novitiate ever carried upon 
him so clearly and unmistakably the stamp of the 
embryo Coimcillor, as John Grant. In some respects 
this was a misfortune to him. His course was too 
easy. He had found his way ; he had not been com- 
pelled to make it. He had not been jostled by the 
crowd ; he had seen little or none of the rough work 
of Indian administration or Indian diplomacy. It 
had been his lot, as it had been his choice, to spend 
the greater part of his official life in close connexion 
with the Head-Quarters of the Government; and, 
therefore, his opportunities of independent action had 
been few ; his personal acquaintance with the coun- 
try and the people was not extensive ; and his work 
had been chiefly upon paper. But as a member of 
a powerful bureaucracy his value was conspicuous. 
Quick in the mastery of facts, clear and precise in 
their analytical arrangement, and gifted with more 
than common powers of expression, he was admi- 
rably fitted to discharge the duties of the Secretariat. 
He was a dead hand at a report ; and if Government 
were perplexed by any difficult questions, involving 
a tangled mass of disordered financial accounts, or a 
great conflict of authority mystifying the truth, he 
was the man of all others to unravel the intricate or 
to elucidate the obscure. Comparatively young in 
years, but ripe in bureaucratic experience, he entered 
the Supreme Council towards the close of Lord Dal- 
housie's administration. But he had sat long enough 



390 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTI^v 

1S56. at the Board to establish his independence. He ex- 
pressed his opinions freely and fearlessly ; and his 
minutes, when minute- writing was in vogue, were 
commonly the best State papers recorded by the 
Government of the day. Closely reasoned, forcibly 
expressed, with here and there touches of quiet 
humour or subdued sarcasm, they cut through any 
sophistries put forth by his colleagues, with sharp in- 
cisive logic, and clearly stated the points at issue 
without disguises and evasions. On the whole, he 
was a man of large and liberal views, the natural 
manifestations of which were, perhaps, soinowhii-,." 
straitened by an acquired official reserve ^ and no 
one questioned the honesty of his intentions or the 
integrity of his life. 
nes Mr. Barnes Peacock was the fourth, and, as is 

cocL commonly called, the " Law Member'^ of Council. 
An English lawyer, appointed to aid the great work 
of Indian legislation, he was a member of the Execu- 
tive rather by sufferance than by right. In a limited 
sense, he was supposed to represent the popular ele- 
ment in the Council. There was no very violent 
conflict of class-interests in those days. But so far 
as such division existed at all, he was regarded as 
the exponent of the views of the non-official Eng- 
lishman and of the Europeanised Natives of the 
large towns, whose interests are bound up with 
our own. For the institution of the Company 
he was believed to have no respect, and for the 
exclusive system of Government by the Company's 
servants no toleration. He had a clear head, an 
acute understanding, but by no means a large mind. 
Assiduous in the work of law-making, he was the 
very soul of the Legislative Council ; and had he 
confined his efforts to the work of moulding into 



BARNES PEACOCK. 391 

draft-acts the ideas of other men, he would have 3856. 
been an invaluable public servant. But he some- 
times went beyond this; and, when he did so, he 
commonly went wrong. For knowing little of the 
people of India, and having only thoroughly English 
notions of philanthropic reforms and legislative bene- 
ficences, he would have taught the people better 
manners with a rapidity for which they were not 
prepared, if he had unrestrainedly followed out his 
own ideas of social improvement. Indeed, he had 
already threatened to limit the polygamies of the Na- 
tives of India, and, doubtless, had a draft-act for the 
purpose on the legislative anvil, when circumstances 
arrested his career of reform. But, although it was 
in the legislative department that his especial strength 
lay, he did not confine himself to it. He grappled 
manfully with all the varied details of the general 
administration. There were times when his legal 
penetration was of service in the disentanglement of 
knotty questions of executive government, and he 
sometimes recorded minutes distinguished by no com- 
mon powers of special pleading. But, on the whole, this 
laborious addiction to business was an encumbrance 
and an embarrassment to the Ministry; and Lord Can- 
ning had soon reason to complain of the conscientious 
excesses of his colleague. A general disinclination to 
take anything for granted impeded the progress of 
business ; and the Governor- General, not without a 
feeling of admiration for a defect that had its root 
in honesty of purpose, endeavoured, and with good 
success, to wean the law member from his habit of 
mastering details which he was not expected to 
imderstand, and keeping back business which it Avas 
desirable to dispose of, whilst he was working up the 
past history of a Native State, or calculating grain- 



392 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1S56. bags in a commissariat account. There, must have 
been some inward promptings of self-knowledge in 
Cannin2:'s own mind to assure him that this labo- 
rious conscientiousness was a part of his o^vn nature ; 
but he felt, at the same time, that his larger scope of 
responsibility demanded from him a larger scope of 
action, and that what was right in the Governor- 
General was not therefore right in his departmental 
colleague. 

Such were the fellow-labourers with whom Lord 
Canning was now about to prosecute the work of 
Government. On the Avhole, the Council was not 
badly constituted for ordinary purposes of adminis- 
tration in quiet times. It contained, indeed, many 
of the essential elements of a good Board. What it 
most wanted was military knowledge ;' for General 
Low, though an old soldier of the Madras Army, had 
seen more of the Court than of the Camp ; and it 
was rather in the diplomacies of the Native States 
than in the conduct of warlike operations, or in the 
details of military administration, that he had earned, 
by hard service, the right to be accepted as an autho- 
rity.* It was a constitutional fiction that, in an 
Indian Council, the necessary amount of military 
knowledge was supplied in the person of the Com- 
mander-in-Chief, who had a seat in it. The seat, 
though legally occupied, was for the most part prac- 
tically empty, for duty might not, and inclination 
did not, keep the military chief at the Head-Quarters 
of the Civil Government. But it happened that, 
when Lord Canning arrived in India, he found 
General Anson in Calcutta. And it was a pleasure 
to him to see in the Indian capital a face that had 
been familiar to him in the English. 

* Sliortly after Lord Canning's land, but returned at the commence- 
Jirriral, General Low went to Eni* ment of the cold weather (1856-57). 



GENERAL ANSON. »^93 

The appointment of the Honourable George Anson 1^56- 
to the chief command of the Indian Army took by 2uson!^ 
surprise the English communities in the three Presi- 
dencies, who had seen his name only in the Racing 
Calendar, or in other records of the Turf. But there 
was one thing at least to be said in his favour : he 
was not an old man. It was not in the nature of 
things, after a long European peace, that good service 
should be found in the officers of the Queen's Army 
unaccompanied by the weight of years. But the 
scandal of imbecility had risen to such a height, the 
military world had grown so sick of infirmity in high 
places — of the blind, the lame, the deaf, the obesely 
plethoric — that they Avere prepared to welcome almost 
any one who could sit a horse, who could see from one 
end to the other of a regiment in line, and hear the 
report of a nine-pounder at a distance of a hundred 
yards. There was nothing to be said against George 
Anson on this score. He could hear and see ; he 
could ride and walk. He was of a light spare figure, 
well framed for active exercise; and his aspect was 
that of a man who could " stand the climate." But 
with all men who first brave that climate in the 
maturity of life, there is a risk and an uncertainty ; 
and appearances belied Anson's capabilities of re- 
sistance. During the hot weather and rainy season 
of 1856, the heats and damps of Bengal tried him 
severely : and Lord Canning more than once wrote 
home that his military colleague was reduced to a 
skeleton, and had lost all his bodily strength and all 
his buoyancy of spirit. But, at the same time, he 
spoke of the Chief as one who had many excellent 
points, both as an officer and as a man. The precise 
limits of authority vested in the chief civil and mili- 
tary functionaries are so ill defined, that, when the 
powers of both are combined in one individual, it is 



394 



OUTBREAK OF THE MLTINY. 



1856. a mercy if he does not quarrel witli liimself. When 
they are divided, as is commonly the case, a conflict 
of authority is inevitable. And so at this time, the 
Govern or- General and the Commander-in-Chief soon 
came into official collision ; but it never grew into 
personal strife between Lord Canning and General 
Anson. The public prints hinted that there was a rup- 
ture between them ; and the same story travelled home- 
wards and penetrated Cannon-row. But the Civilian 
wrote, that though there had been some special points 
of difference between them, the temper of the Soldier 
was so charming, and he was so thoroughly a gen- 
tleman, that it was quite impossible to quarrel with 
him. The inevitable antagonism of official interests 
could not weaken the ties of personal regard ; and 
when Anson, in the month of September, left Cal- 
cutta on a tour of military inspection in the Upper 
Provinces, he carried with him no kindlier wishes 
than those which attended him warm from the heart 
of the Governor-General.* 



* What Lord Canning wrote about 
General Anson is so honourable to 
both, that it is quite a pleasure to 
quote it. "We get on admirably 
together," wrote the Governor-Gene- 
ral in June. " His temper is charm- 
ing, and I know no one whom T 
should not be sorry to see substi- 
tuted for him." And again, in Oc- 
tober : " I am not surprised at the 
report you mention that Anson and 
1 do not get on well together, be- 
cause such a rumour was current in 
Calcutta two or three months ago, 
and even found its way into the 
newspapers. I believe it originated 
in a difference between us on two 
points ; one (of much interest to the 
Indian Army), the power of the Com- 



mander-in-Chief to withhold appli- 
cations for furlough, transmitted 
through him to the Governor-Gene- 
ral in Council ; the other, an autho- 
rity to exercise something very like 
a veto upon the Governor-General's 
selections of officers for civil and 
political service. Upon both of which 
I found it necessary to disallow his 
pretensions. But neither these dis- 
agreements, nor the reports to which 
they gave rise, have for a moment 
caused any misunderstanding or re- 
serve between us. It would be very 
difficult to quarrel with any one so 
imperturbabiy good tempered, and 
so thoroughly a gentleman." — MS, 
Correspondence, 



TEi OUr-E ADMINISTRATION. 395 



CHAPTER II. 

Ll^ni' C/Jf^TT"{IG's FIB&1 YEAR — THE OTJDE COMMISSION — WAJID ALT AND 
IHE EMBASSY TO ENGLAND — THE PERSIAN WAR — THE QUESTION OP 
COMMAND — JAMES OUTEAM — CENTRAL-ASIAN POLICY — DOST MAHOMED — 
JOHN LAWRENCE AND HERBERT EDWARDES AT PESHAWUR — HENRY 
LAWRENCE IN LTJCKNOW. 

"With tliese colleagues in the Council Chamber, and 1855. 
with a staff of able, well- trained secretaries, of whom 
I shall speak hereafter, in the several Departments, 
the new Governor- General found the burden of his 
work, though it pressed heavily upon him, in no way 
galling or dispiriting. There are always small vexa- 
tions and embarrassments ; incidental details, that will 
not run smoothly in the administrative groove, but 
grind and grate and have a stubborn obstructiveness • 
about them. But the great sum-total of the business 
before him wore an aspect cheerful and encourag- 
ing. There was tranquillity in India. Outwardly, 
it seemed that Lord Dalhousie had left only a 
heritage of Peace. Even in Oude, just emerging The A dmiais- 
from a revolution, there were external signs of general Oude." ° 
quietude ; of contentment, or at least of submission ; 
and of the satisfactory progress of the administra- 
tion. But a new administrator was wanted. Outram 
had done his work. He had been selected to fill the 
office of Resident, and no man could have more be- 



396 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. comingly represented British interests at a corrupt 
and profligate Court. In that capacity it had fallen 
to his lot to accomplish ministerially the revolution 
which had been decreed by the British Government. 
But it was work that sickened him ; for although he 
believed that it was the duty of the Paramount State 
to rescue Oude from the anarchy by which it had so 
long been rent, he was one whose political predilec- 
tions were in favour of the maintenance of the Native 
States, and he knew that much wrong had been done 
to the Princes and Chiefs of India under the plea of 
promoting the interests of the people. When the 
Proclamation converted Oude into a British province, 
the Resident became Chief Commissioner, and the 
superintendence of the administration was the work 
that then devolved upon him. But it was work that 
Outram was not now destined to perform. His 
health had broken down ; the hot season was coming 
on apace ; and a voyage to England had been ur- 
gently pressed upon him by his medical advisers. So 
he sought permission to lay down the Portfolio for 
a while, and asked the Governor-General to appoint 
an officer to act for him in his absence. 

It would have been comparatively easy to find a 
successor suited to the work, if the appointment to 
be disposed of had been a permanent one. But Lord 
Canning had to find a man able to conduct the ad- 
ministration at its most difficult stage, and yet willing 
to forsake other important work for the brief tenure 
of another's office. Outram said that there was one 
man in whom both the ability and the will were to 
be found. That man was Henry Ricketts, a Bengal 
civilian of high repute, whose appointment was 
pressed upon Lord Canning as the best that could be 
made. But Ricketts was wanted for other work. 



HENRY LAWRENCE. 397 

The authorities at home were clamouring for a reduc- 1856. 
tion of expenditure ; and as retrenchment, public or 
private, conmionly begins in the wrong place, a re- 
vision of official salaries was to be one of the first 
eiForts of our economy. So Mr. Ricketts had been 
specially appointed to furnish a Report on the best 
means of extracting from the officers of Government 
the same amount of good public service for a less 
amount of public money. Lord Canning shook his 
head doubtfully at the experiment ; but Cannon-row 
was urgent, and nothing Avas to be suffered to inter- 
rupt the labours of the man who was to suggest the 
means of increasing the financial prosperity of the. 
Company by sapping out the energies of those upon 
whom that prosperity mainly depended. 

Whilst Outram and the Governor- General were 
corresponding about this arrangement, another plan 
for the temporary administration of Oude was sug- 
gesting itself; but it nevf^ became more than a sug- 
gestion. Ever since the dissolution of the Lahore 
Board, Sir Henry Lawrence had held office as chief 
of the Political Agency in Rajpootana. It was a 
post of honour and responsibility ; but there was not 
in the work to be done enough to satisfy so ardent 
and so active a mind, and he had longed, during 
that great struggle before Sebastopol, which he had 
watched with eao;er interest from the beoinnino- to 
show, when all the departments were breaking down, 
what a rough-and-ready Indian Political might do to 
help an army floundering miserably in a strange 
land. But this field of adventure Avas closed ao^ainst 
him. Peace was proclaimed : and Henry Lawrence, 
who had studied well the history and the institutions 
of Oude, and who had advocated the assumption of 
the government, but not the annexation of the pro- 



398 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

ISoG. vince or the absorption of its revenues, thought tliat 
he might do some good by superintending the ad- 
ministration during the first year of our tenure. 
There were many interests to be dealt with in that 
conjuncture, which require! a strong but a gentle 
hand to accommodate them to the great revolution 
that had been accomplished, and he felt some appre- 
hension lest civilian-government, harsh and precise, 
should fortliAvith begin to systematise, in utter dis- 
regard of the institutions and the usages of the 
country, and should strike at once for a flourishing 
balance-sheet. It was too little the fashion to sym- 
pathise with the fallen fortunes of men ruined by 
the dominant influence of the White Race. In the 
chivalrous benevolence of the out-going Commis- 
sioner, Henry Lawrence had full confidence. The 
great-hearted compassion which Outram had shown 
for the Ameers of Scinde, proclaimed the mercy and 
the justice of the man. But a civilian of the new 
school from the Regulation Provinces might bring 
with him a colder heart and a sharper practice, and 
might overbear all ancient rights and privileges in 
pursuit of the favourite theory of the Dead Level. 
Anxious to avert this, which he believed would be a 
calamity alike to the people of Oude and to his own 
government, Henry Lawrence ofl'ered to serve, during 
the transition-period, in Outram's place ; and the first 
misfortune that befel the ministry of Lord Canning 
was that the letter, conveying the proposal, arrived a 
little too late. A Commissioner had already been ap- 
pointed. 
The iN'ew The choice had fallen on Mr. Coverley Jackson, a 

S!!^i!^^^' civilian from the North- West Provinces, an expert 
revenue-oflicer, held in high esteem as a man of 
ability, but more than suspected of some infirmity of 



COVERLET JACKSON. 399 

temper. Aware of this notorious failing, but not 1S56. 
deeming it sufficient to disqualify one otherwise so 
well fitted for the post, Lord Canning accompanied 
his offer of the appointment with a few words of 
caution, frank but kindly, and Jackson in the same 
spirit received the admonition, assuring the Governor- 
General that it would be his earnest endeavour to 
conciliate the good feelings of all who might be 
officially connected with him, so far as might be con- 
sistent with the claims of the public service and the 
maintenance of the authority entrusted to him. But 
he did not accomplish this ; and there is slight evi- 
dence that he resolutely attempted it. It was an un- 
toward occurrence that the man next in authority, 
and the one with whom the circumstances of the 
province brought him most frequently into official 
communication, was as little able to control his 
temper as Jackson himself Mr. Martin Gubbins, of 
the Bengal Civil Service, was the Financial Commis- 
sioner. Upon him devolved the immediate superin- 
tendence of the revenue administration of our new 
territory, whilst Mr. Ommaney, of the same service, 
superintended the department of Justice. A man of 
rare intelligence and sagacity, eager and energetic, 
Martin Gubbins would have been a first-rate public 
servant, if his utility had not been marred by a 
contentious spirit. His angularities of temper were 
continually bringing him into collision with others, 
and his pertinacious self-assertion would not sufi'er 
him, when once entangled in a controversy, ever to 
detach himself from it. Of all men in the service he Jackson and 
was the one least likely to work harmoniously with ^^^^^^^• 
the Chief Commissioner. So it happened that, in a 
very short time, they were in a state of violent an- 
tagonism. "Whether, in the first instance, Jackson 



400 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

185C. overstrained liis autliority, and unwisely and unkindly 
expressed his displeasure in language calculated to 
excite irritation and resentment, or whether Gubbins 
was the first to display an insubordinate spirit, and to 
provoke the censure of his chief by the attempted 
usurpation of his powers, it is of little importance 
now to inquire. The sharp contention that grew up 
between them was soon made known to the Governor- 
General, who deplored and endeavoured to arrest it. 
How wisely and calmly he conveyed to the Commis- 
sioner an expression, less of his displeasure than of 
his regret, his correspondence pleasantly illustrated.* 
But no kindly counsel from Government House could 
smoothe down the asperities of Jackson's temper. As 
time advanced, the feud between him and Gubbins 
greAv more bitter and more irreconcilable. In India, 
a paper war once commenced lasts out many a mili- 
tary campaign. There is something so exciting, so 
absorbing in it, that even the best public servants 
sometimes forget the public interests whilst they are 
wasting their time and expending their energies in 
personal conflicts and criminations. Had Coverley 
Jackson taken half as much pains to see that the 
pledges of the British Government were fulfilled, 
and the annexation of Oude rendered as little ruinous 

* Take, for example, the follow- of his duty, and is possessed of the 

iiig : "Judginj:^ by my own expe- feelings and temper of a gentleman, 

rience, I should say that in dealing the more simply Ids error is put be- 

^viIh public servants who have in- fore him, and the more plain and quiet 

curred blame, everything is to be the reproof, the better ciiance there 

gained by telling them their faults in is of his correcting himself readily 

unmistakable language, plainly and and willingly, and that if we w^ish to 

nakedly ; but that one's purpose get work done hereafter out of some 

(their amendment) is rather defeated one whom it is necessary to rebuke, 

than otherwise by the use of terms we ought to give him as little excuse 

that sting them, or amplify their as possible (he will too often find 

offences to them unnecessarily — even it where it is not given) for feeling 

though all be done within the strict irritated against ourselves." —Zorc? 

limits of truth and fact. I believe Canning to Mr. Cooerley Jackson, 

that if a man has at bottom a sense July 7, 1856. — MS. Correspondence. 



THE KING OF OUDE. 401 

as possible to all the chief people of the province, 1856. 
as he did to convict his subordinates of official mis- 
demeanours, it would have been better both for his 
own character and for the character of the nation. 
But whilst Jackson and Gubbins were in keen con- 
tention with each other, covering reams of paper with 
their charges and counter-charges and their vehement 
self-assertions, the generous nature of the Governor- 
General was grieved by complaints and remonstrances 
from the King, who declared, or suffered it to be 
declared for him, that the English officers in Luck- 
now were inflicting grievous wrongs and indignities 
upon him and upon his Family, seizing or destroying 
his property, and humiliating the members and de- 
pendents of his House. 

It has been shown that Wajid Ali, when he sawMovcmenii 
that all hope of saving his dominions from the great ^}^^^ ^^' 
white hand that had been laid upon them had utterly 
gone from him, had talked about travelling to Eng- 
land and laying his sorrows at the foot of the Throne. 
But, in truth, travelling to England, or to any other 
place, was a thing rather to be whined about than 
to be done, by one so destitute of all activities, 
physical and mental, and it was almost certain that 
he would hitch somewhere ; not improbably at the 
tirst stage. And so he did. Halting not far from 
Lucknow, the King awaited the on-coming of his 
minister, Ali Nuckee Khan, a man not wanting in 
activities of any kind, who had been detained at 
the capital to aid in the ^' transfer of the Govern- 
ment," out of w^hich he had been ousted. But after 
a Avhile King and Minister, and other regal appen- 
dages, male and female, moved on towards Calcutta 
—the iirst stages by land ; then afterwards taking the 
river-steamer, at a time of ^ear when there is ever a 

2d 



402 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

scant supply of water for such travelling, they wpre 
constrahied to go " round by the Sunderbunds," and 
make a long and by no means a pleasant voyage to 
the English capital ; of which necessity Lord Can- 
ning shrewdly observed that it would give his Majesty 
such a foretaste of life on board as would inevitably 
drive out of him any lingering thought of the passage 
across the black water to England. 

And so it was. The King arrived at Calcutta when 
the month of May had burnt itself half out, and was 
soon domiciled in a house on the river-side, which had 
erst been the suburban villa of an English Chief- 
Justice. It was enough for him to see the steamers 
smoking past him sea- wards; and to keep steadily 
before him the conviction that for a man of his tastes 
and habits, to take no account of his girth, Garden- 
Reach was a more recommendable place than the Bay 
of Bengal, the Red Sea, or the Mediterranean. But 
still the pilgrimage to the foot of the Throne was to 
be undertaken, not by but for the last of the Oude 
Kings. Without any sacrifice of his personal ease, 
or any abandonment of the delights of the Zenana, he 
might enter a vicarious appearance at St. James's by 
sending the chief members of his family — the nearest 
of his kindred, in each stage and relation, before, 
beside, and after him — liis mother, his brother, and 
his son, with agents and ministers, black and white, 
to plead against the seizure of his dominions. 

There was one of the royal party with some sub- 
stance of masculine vigour still left as God had given 
it ; and that one Avas not the Heir-Apparent, or the 
so-called General, or a born manhood of any kind, 
but the Queen-Mother, who set the example of goin.<^ 
across the dreary waste of black water and levoi sand 
struight to tlie feet of the Queen of England. And 



THE OUDE MISSION. 403 

they went, not scantily attended either, those three, 1856 
like thieves in the night, embarking secretly in the 
darkness, and taking Government House by surprise 
with the report of the accomplished fact of their de- 
parture. Not that Government House would have 
opposed any obstacle to their going in broad daylight, 
with drums beating and flags flying; but that the 
steam-company, with an eye to business, thought it 
better to make a secret of it ; such fellow-travellers, 
according to European notions, not increasing the 
comforts of the voyage. As to the Govern or- General, 
all he could say was, " Let them go ;" pitying the 
East India Company, thus compelled to receive such 
troublesome visitors, but claiming for them kindly 
and courteous treatment at the hands of the mag- 
nates of Leadenhall. And so those representatives of 
the exploded kingship of Oude went westward, Avith 
vague but extensive ideas of a recovery past look- 
ing for on this side of eternity, buoyed up and en- 
couraged by men who well knew the hopelessness 
of the endeavour. The *'case" was miserably mis- 
managed. There was much internal strife, and 
scarcely an attempt to strike out against the common 
foe. The so-called " Mission" went to pieces and 
rotted piecemeal. Not merely waste of treasure was 
there, but waste of life. The Queen-Mother and the 
Prince- General died, and were buried in the great 
cemetery of Pere la Chaise. The Heir- Apparent, 
money-bound and helpless, threw himself upon the 
mercy of the enemy, borrowed from them half a lakh 
of rupees, and was carried homewards, somewhat 
dazed and bewildered as to the upshot or no upshot 
of the whole affair, but with a prevailing sense of 
escape and relief that it was all over. And the rest 
of the luckless embassy went at last, leaving behind 

2d 2 



the ex-Kiuj 



404 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. them some scum of official trouble and mishap, an^ 
some legal perplexities not readily soluble by any 
" perfection of human reason" known in our English 
courts. 
Giievancesof Meanwhile, in the name of the King himself, 
ministerial activities had not been wanting in India 
to make substantial grievance, not so much of the 
thing done (for that was left to the " Mission") as 
of the manner of doing it, which had not been all 
right. In the Humanities, wherein is included the 
great art of letting down easily, good to be learnt 
alike by Men and by Governments, w^e had not 
taken first-class honours. Not without some red- 
denings of shame is it to be recorded that the 
wrongs inflicted upon the Princes of India in the 
shape of territorial dispossessions and titular extinc- 
tions had been sometimes supplemented by lesser 
wrongs, more grievous to bear upon the one side and 
less to be justified on the other. For there is some 
dignity in great wrong, doing or sufi*ering ; and a 
persuasion, in one case, not without sincerity at the 
bottom, that wrong is right. But look at the matter 
in what light we may, it can be nothing but miserable 
wrong to make these dispossessions and extinctions, 
which may be for the national good, the forerunners 
of personal distresses and humiliations to individuals 
thus dispossessed and extinguished. Yet men and, 
redder shame still, feeble Zenana-bred women had 
brought this charge against the strong Government of 
the British, before the kingdom of Oude was marked 
for extinction ; and now again the same complaint of 
supplemental cruelties and indignities, more galling 
than the one great wrong itself, went up from Wajid 
Ali, or was uttered in his name. It was charged 
against us that our officers had turned the stately 
palaces of Lucknow into stalls and kennels, that 



GRIEVANCES OF THE OUDE FAMILY. 40o 

delicate women, tlie daughters or the companions of 1B56. 
Kings, had been sent adrift, homeless and helpless, 
that treasure-houses had been violently broken open 
and despoiled, that the private property of the royal 
family had been sent to the hammer, and that other 
vile things had been done very humiliating to the. 
King's people, but far more disgraceful to our own. 

Not only so disgraceful, but so injurious to us, so 
great a blunder, indeed, would such conduct have 
been, that all who had any hope of the restoration of 
the Oude monarchy must have devoutly wished the 
story to be true. There were those who had such 
hope. How could it be hopeless, when it was re- 
membered that the Sepoy Army of the Company wa?. 
full of men whose homes were in Oude ; when it was 
believed that the 2:reat flood of En dish rule was 
sweeping away all existing interests, and destroying 
all the influential classes alike in the great towns and 
in the rural districts? The ministers and courtiers 
of the King of Oude were at large in Calcutta anr*. 
the neighbourhood, and might journey whithersoever 
they pleased. Vast fields of intrigue were open before 
them. The times were propitious. It was plain that 
there was a feeling of inquietude in the native mind, 
and that fear had engendered discontent. It was 
certain that the British Government were weak, for 
the country was stripped of European troops. The 
good day might yet come. Meanwhile, it might be 
something to spread abroad, truly or falsely, a story 
to the efl'ect that the English, adding insult to injury, 
had cruelly humiliated all the members of the Oude 
family left behind in Lucknow. 

In these stories of official cruelty Canning had 
small faith. But the honour of his Government de- 
manded that they should be inquired into and con- 
tradicted, and he urged the Chief Commissioner at 



406 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

185G. once to investigate and report upon the charges put 
lorth by the creatures of the King. But Jackson, 
full of his own wrongs, failed to see the importance 
of the task assigned to him, and his answ^ers were 
unsatisfactory and apparently evasive. Privately 
as well as publicly he was urged by the Governor- 
General to address himself seriously to the work of 
effacing from the nation the dishonour with which 
the dependents of the old Court of Lucknow had 
endeavoured to besmear the British name. But 
the result was not what Lord Canning had sought, 
not what he had expected. So at last, bitterly grieved 
and disappointed by the manner m which his repre- 
sentative had dealt with a subject, at once of so 
delicate and so important a nature, the Governor- 
General thus becom.mgiy poured lorth his indig- 
Octoher 19, nation : "I will not conceal from you," he wrote to 
Mr. Jackson, " my disappointment at the manner in 
which from first to last you have treated this matter. 
Instead of enabling the Government to answer dis- 
tinctly and categorically every complaint which the 
King has preferred, you have passed over unnoticed 
some upon which you must have known that the 
Government were without materials for reply. Upon 
placing your answ^ers, now that all have been re- 
ceived, side by side with the King's letters, I find 
myself quite unable to say whether any buildings 
such as he describes have been pulled down, and if 
so. why ? — although one building, the Jelwa Khana, 
had been especially mentioned to the King, as in 
course of demolition — whether dogs or horses have 
been quartered in the Chutter Munzil, and especially 
whether a stoppage of the allowances to the King s 
descendants has been threatened, a statement to this 
effect being pointedly made in the King's letter of 
the 14th of September You tell me that you have 



1856. 



SHORT-COMINGS OF THE CHIEF COMiMISSIONER. 407 

delayed your answers in order tliat they may be more 1S56. 
complete. I can hardly think, therefore, that these 
matters have escaped you, and yet I do not know 
how otherwise to account for their being passed by. 
Be this as it may, the result of your course of pro- 
ceeding is that the Governor-General is placed in an 
unbecoming, not to say humiliating position towards 
the King of Oude. The King brings complaints, 
which, whether true or false, are plain enough against 
the officers of Government, and the Governor-Gene- 
ral, after assuring the King that as soon as reference 
shall have been made to the Chief Commissioner, 
satisfactory explanation shall be given, and relying, 
as he has a right to do, that that officer will obey 
his instructions and do his duty, finds himself alto- 
gether mistaken, and defeated upon points which, 
however unworthy of notice they may appear to the 
Chief Commissioner at Lucknow, cannot be slurred 
over by the Government in Calcutta. It matters 
nothing that these charges are instigated by dis- 
reputable hangers-on of the King, or that they are 
wholly or partly untrue, or even impossible. There 
they are in black and white, and they must be 
answered. It is surprising to me that you should 
have failed to appreciate the necessity." 

And it was surprising; but Coverley Jackson, at 
that time, could scarcely appreci4ite any necessity save 
that of riding roughshod over Gubbins and Ommaney, 
and keeping them down to the right subordinate level. 
How far these charges of cruel indifference to the feel- 
ings of the Oude family were true, to what extent the 
dependents of the late King were wronged and hu- 
miliated, and the nobles of the land despoiled and 
depressed ; how, indeed, the revolution affected all 
existing interests, are subjects reserved for future in- 
quiry. It would have been well if the Chief Conimis- 



408 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. sioncr had done as much to mollify these poor people 
as to exasperate his own colleagues. But the temper 
of the man was to the last degree arbitrary and ex- 
acting, and Lord Canning, though with admirable 
patience and moderation he strove to control the ex- 
cesses of his agent, could not hold them in check. 
Pointing to the great exemplar of John Lawrence, the 
Oude administration having been constructed on the 
Punjabce model, he showed that the reins of govern- 
ment might be held with a firm and vigorous hand by 
one not grasping at all departmental authority. But 
these kindly teachings were in vain. The old strife 
continued. Striking with one hand at Gubbins, and 
with the other at Ommaney, the Chief Commissioner 
was continually in an attitude of offence ; and the ad- 
ministration was likely to be wrecked altogether upon 
the lee-shore of these internal contentions. So, at 
last, the Governor- General was forced upon the con- 
viction that he had selected the wrong man to preside 
in Oude, and that the sooner he could be removed 
from it the better for the province. 

The readiest means of effecting this, without any 
public scandal or any recorded reproach injurious to 
Jackson's career, was by the restoration of James 
Outram to the post which the civilian had been hold- 
ing for him. Very unfit, doubtless, was the "• officiating 
Chief Commissioner" for that post ; but he had done 
good service to the State, he had some commendable 
points of character, and even at the bottom of his 
proved incapacity for this particular office there might 
be nothing Avorse than a distempered zeal. So Lord 
Canning, in the exercise of what is called a " sound 
discretion," as well as in obedience to the dictates of a 
kind heart, sought to accomplish the end in view by 
a return to the status ante in the natural order of 
things, rather than by any violent supersession of his 



WAR WITH PERSIA. 409 

unfortunate nominee. It was doubly a source, there- 1556. 
fore, of satisfaction to him to learn that Outram, 
whose shattered health at the time of his departure in 
the spring had excited sad forebodings in the mind of 
the Governor-General, now in the autumn declared 
himself convalescent and about to return to his work. 
But the work, the very thought of which had breathed 
into the veins of the soldier-statesman new health, and 
revived all his prostrate activities, was not administra- 
tive business in Oude. It was altogether work of 
another kind and in another place, far enough away 
from the scene of all his former endeavours; work 
the. account of which must be prefaced by some, 
historical explanations. 



Scarcely had Lord Canning taken his place in The rupturt 
Government House, when the question of a war with ^^^^ '^^*' 
Persia began to assume portentous dimensions. Truly, 
it was not his concern. Ever since the days Avben, 
nearly half a century before, there had been a strange 
mad scramble for diplomatic supremacy in Persia be- 
tween the delegates of the Governor-General and of 
the Court of St. James's, the position of the Govern- 
ment of India towards our Persian ]\Iission and our 
Persian policy had been very indistinctly defined. The 
financial responsibility of the Company had been at 
all times assumed, and the executive assistance of the 
Indian Government had been called for, when our re- 
lations with that perfidious Court had been beset with 
difficulties beyond the reach of diplomatic address. 
But the political control had been vested in the Im- 
perial Government, as represented by the Foreign 
Office;* and the officers of the Mission had been 

* Except during a brief interval ; delegated partially the nianaj^ement 
that is, between the years 1826 and of atiairs to the Governor-General, 
1835, wiieu the Kin^^'s Government only to resume it wholly agaiu. 



410 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. noDiinated by the Crown. Affairs were still in this 
state when Lord Canning assumed the Government 
of India, and found that Great Britain was rapidly 
drifting into a war with Persia, which it would be his 
duty to direct, and the resources for which must be 
supplied from the country under his charge. 
Herat. The difficulties, which now seemed to render war 

inevitable, were chronic difficulties, which were fast 
precipitating an acute attack of disease. They were 
an after-growth of the great convulsion of 1838, which 
had culminated in the war in Afghanistan. We had 
tried to forget that hated country ; but there was a 
Nemesis that forbade oblivion. It was an article of 
our political faith that Herat must be an independent 
principality, and we clung to it as if the very salvation 
of our Indian Empire depended on the maintenance 
of this doctrine. But there was nothing in the whole 
range of Eastern politics so certain to engender con- 
tinual tribulation, and at last to compel us to apostatise 
in despair. The independence of Herat was a shadowy 
idea ; it never could be a substantial reality. With 
an Army of Occupation in Afghanistan, and with 
British officers freely disbursing British gold at the 
" crate of India," we had for a while maintained the 
outward independence of the principality under Shah 
Kamran of the Suddozye House of Caubul ; but even 
then the minister, Yar Mahomed, was continually de- 
clarino* that his heart was with Iran, and threatenino; 
to throw himself into the arms of the Persian King. 
When the British Army had evacuated Afghanistan, 
the bold, unscrupulous minister, having soon relieved 
himself of the nominal sovereignty of the Suddozye, 
began to rule the country on his own account. And 
he ruled it well : that is, he ruled it with vigour ; and 
for some ten years, by astute diplomacy, the soul of 



TUE POLITICS OF HERAT. 41 1 

which was a system of small concessions to Persia, 1^52. 
which soothed her pride and averted great demands, 
he governed the principality in peace, and maintained 
its nominal integrity. But his son, Syud Mahomed, 
who succeeded him, had none of the essentials of a 
gTeat ruler. Plentifully endowed with his father s 
wickedness, he lacked all his father's vigour. Trea- 
cherous and unscrupulous, but feeble in the extreme, 
he was ready, on the first appearance of danger, to 
become a creature of the Persian Court. Persia 
eagerly seized the opportunity; and again England 
appeared upon the scene. 

In the course of 1852, a Persian Army marched 
upon Herat. Not, indeed, in open defiance ; not with 
any avowed object of conquest ; but nominally, as a 
powerful ally, to perform an olftce of friendship. On 
the death of Yar Mahomed the affairs of the princi- 
pality had fallen into confusion, and the Persian 
Army went forth with the benevolent design of re- 
storing them to order and prosperity. But the mask 
was soon thrown aside. The real object of the expe- 
dition proclaimed itself. Herat was declared to be an 
appendage of the Persian monarchy. This was not 
to be borne. To maintain the independence of Herat, 
England a few years before had been prepared to 
send her legions to the gates of the city. And now 
Persia was destroying it by a trick. So, fortified by 
instructions from Dov/ning-street, the British minister 
resisted the outrage. On pain of an entire forfeiture 
of the friendship of Great Britain, the Persian Govern- 
ment were called upon to withdraw their army, and to 
enter into a solemn covenant binding them to recog- 
nise and respect the independence of Herat. There 
were then the usual displays of trickery and evasive- 
ness ; but overawed at last by the resolute bearing of 



412 OUTBREAR OF THE MUTINY. 

1353. the Britisli ininister, the required pledge was givei^ 
and Persia bound herself to acknowledge the inde- 
pendence which she was so eager to crush. But she 
was sorely disturbed and irritated by our interference 
with her schemes of ambition ; and thenceforth the 
British Mission became an object of dislike and sus- 
picion at Teheran ; and a rupture between the two 
Courts was only a question of time. 

The war in the Crimea delayed — it did not avert — 
the inevitable crisis. The genius of Persia had then 
free scope for exercise, and turned to the best account 
its opportunities of double-dealing. Waiting the sen- 
tence of the great Judge of Battles, she coquetted 
Doth with Russia and with the Allies, and was ready 
to sell her good offices to the stronger party, or in a 
time of uncertainty to the higher bidder. But when 
ihe Avar ceased, her importance was gone; she had 
not been able to turn her position to account during 
the day of strife, and when peace dawned again upon 
Europe, she tried in vain to be admitted to the great 
international Council, which made the work of re- 
conciliation complete. Disappointed and offended, 
perhaps, not thinking much of our boasted victory, 
for Russia had been successful in Asiatic Turkey, and 
Persia knew less about Sebastopol than about Kars, 
she could see no profit in the English alliance. The 
minister who then directed her affairs had no feeling 
of affection for the British representative at her Court. 
A strong personal prejudice, therefore, came in to 
aggravate the national antipathy ; and before the end 
of 1855, the Mission had been so grievously insulted 
that Mr. Murray hauled down the British Flag, ^nd 
set his face towards the Turkish frontier. 

1S55. Into the details of this affair it is unnecessary to 

enter. Another event occurred about the same time. 



DOST MAHOMED KHAN. 413 

A rebellion broke out in Herat. Syud Mahomed was 18:>5. 
killed. In his place was installed a member of the 
old Suddozye House, a nephew of Shah Kamran, 
Yusoof Khan by name, who had no peculiar qualifi- 
cations for empire, but who could not be worse than 
the man whom he had supplanted. A revolution of 
this kind is so much in the common course of Afohan 
history, that we need not seek to account for it by 
any other than internal causes. But it was said that 
it had been fomented by Persian intrigue ; and it is 
certain that the Government of the Shah were eager 
to profit by the crisis. The times were propitious. 
There was in Central Asia at that time one great man, 
whose movements were regarded at the Persian Court 
with alarm not altogether feigned, though sometimes 
exaggerated for a purpose. Ever since the British 
had set the seal on their confession of gigantic failure 
in Afghanistan by restoring Dost Mahomed to empire, 
the energies and activities of the old Ameer had ex- 
pended themselves on the consolidation of his former 
dominions ; and now he was hot to extend them to 
the westward. It was not merely an impulse of ambi- 
tion. In part, at least, it was an instinct of self- 
preservation. The pretensions of Persia were not 
limited, and her encroachments were not likely to be 
confined, to the principality of Herat. Already she 
had established a dominant influence in Candahar, 
and did not scruple to talk about her rights of 
dominion. It was impossible for Dost Mahomed to 
regard this Avith unconcern. That Persia had views 
of extended influence, if not of actual conquest, in 
Afghanistan was certain. She had proposed to the 
Ameer himself to reduce the whole country to the 
condition of a protected State. The time had now 
come for him to put forth a mighty hand and a 



4 1 4 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1835. stretched-out arm for the maintenance of the inde- 
pendence of Afghanistan. Kohun-dil-Khan, his half- 
brother, the Chief of Candahar, died in the autumn 
of 1855. Dost Mahomed had never trusted him ; and 
his son was not to he trusted. So the Ameer, who 
had no love for half-measures, annexed Candahar to 
the kingdom of Caubul ; and the Persian Government 
believed, or pretended to believe, that he included 
Herat itself in his scheme of conquest. 

He had at that time no such design. But it was a 
favourite trick of Persia to justify her OAvn acts of 
aggression by a reference to some alleged danger and 
the necessity of self-preservation. So, seeing in the 
internal state of Herat an encouraging opportunity, 
and in the movements of Dost Mahomed a plausible 
pretext for evading their obligations, the Government 
of the Shah tore the convention of 1853 into shreds, 

185G. and again marched an army upon Herat. But it met 
with no welcome there. Alarmed by the movements 
of the Caubul Ameer, and threatened with a counter- 
revolution at home, the nominal ruler of Herat had 
turned toAvards the Persians for assistance, but when 
he found that the chief people of the place were op- 
posed to such an alliance, and that a strong national 
Sooneeism prevailed among them, he hoisted British 
colours and invited Dost Mahomed to come to his aid. 
The characteristic bad faith of the Suddozye Princes 
was conspicuous in this wretched man. E[is own 
people could not trust him. The Persians were in- 
vesting the place, and it was feared that Yusoof Khan 
would betray the city into their hands. It was easy, 
therefore, to raise a party against him. So Eesa Khan, 
the Deputy or Lieutenant-Governor of the place, caused 
iiim to be seized, and sent him a prisoner into the 
enemy's camp, with a letter declaring that he was of 



VIEWS OF LORD CANNING. 415 

no use in Herat, and tliat the Persians might do with 1856. 
him as they liked. 

To this point events had progressed vi^hen Lord 
Canning w^as called upon to address himself seriously 
to the consideration of the troubled politics of Central 
Asia. To the new Governor-General these complica- 
tions were a source of no common anxiety, for he could 
see clearly that England was drifting into war, and 
that, however little he might have to do with it in its 
origin and conception, its execution would be en- 
trusted to him. There was a bitter flavour about the • 
whole aifair that was distasteful in the extreme to the 
Governor-General. " My hope of an accommodation," 
he wrote to the President in August, "has almost 
died out, and I contemplate the prospect of the in- 
glorious and costly operations which lie before us 
with more disgust than I can express."* He had 
gone out, as others had gone before him, with an 
avowed and a sincere desire for peace ; but warned 
by their cruel disappointments, he had laid fast hold 
in India of the resolution which he had formed in Eng- 
land, and he was not by any adverse or any alluring 
circumstances to be driven or enticed into uimecessary 
w^ar. "Do not," he said, "be afraid of my being 
unduly hasty to punish Persia. Unless the Shah 
should steam up the Hooghly, with Murray swinging 
at his yard-arm, I hope that we shall be able to keep 
the peace until your instructions arrive."! And he 
was anxious to avoid, not only aggressive measures 
from the side of India, but any diplomatic entangle- 
ments that might at some future time be a cause of 
perplexity to his Government. The politics of Central 
Asia he regarded with extreme aversion. Remember- 

* Lord Camiinp^ fo Mr, Vernon f The same to the sarae, April 22, 
Smith, August 8, 1856.— JfA^. 1856.-3/^. 



41 fi OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

185C. irig the fearful lessons of the Past, he determined nor. 
of his own free will, to send a single man into Ai'ojhan- 
istan ; and he resisted the promptings of Ministers al. 
home, when it w^as suggested to him somewhat pre- 
maturely that seasonable donatives might convert 
Dost Mahomed into an eiFective ally, willing and 
ready to apply a blister from the side of Candahar 
AiifTust, And when, at a later period, instructions came from 
England to supply the Ameer with arms and money 
and authority w^as given to the Governor-General to 
send a British Mission to Herat, he shrunk from 
acting upon the latter suggestion. " I do not pur- 
pose," he wrote, " to use the permission to send 
British officers to Herat. We know much too little 
of things there to justify this step, which would for 
certain be full of risk. The place is hard pressed by 
famine as w^ell as by the enemy. Our officers could 
take with them no relief nor any promise of it, for w^e 
are not going to march to Herat ourselves, and we 
cannot afford to promise on the faith of the Ameer's 
performances." 

But unwilling as was Lord Canning to adopt the 
measures, to which reference w^as made in these 
letters, he could not maintain this policy of non- 
interference in Afghanistan after the Home Govern- 
ment had determined upon the declaration of war 
against Persia. The year had scarcely dawned, when 
such an upshot began to be discussed as something 
of no very remote reality, and before Parliament had 
broken up and her Majesty's Ministers had dispersed 
for the autumn, the equipment of an expedition to 
the Persian Gulf had been decreed. The orders from 
Home were that all preparations should be made for 
the despatch of a military and naval expedition from 



THE PERSIAN EXPEDITION. 417 

Bombay to the Persian Gulf; but that pending the 1S56, 
progress of some further diplomacies in Europe, 
which might end in concessions,, no actual start 
should be made. It was not until the end of Sep- 
tember that her Majesty's Government, througli the 
legal channel of tlie Secret Committee of the Court 
of Directors of the East India Company, sent out 
final instructions for the sailing of the expedition 
and the commencement of the war.* On the even- 
ing of the last day of October, these instructions 
reached the Governor-General in Calcutta, and on the 
following morning — day of evil omen, for eighteen November 
years before it had delivered itself of the sad Afghan 
manifesto — a proclamation of war was issued. On 
the same day it was sent to Lord Elphinstone at 
Bombay, and the General in command was charged 
with instructions respecting the conduct of the expe- 
dition, and ordered straightway to begin. 

The question of the command of the expedition The question 
had been one, which Lord Canning by no means ° ^°"^"^^'^' • 
found it easy to solve. Many names had been sug- 
gested to him, and among them that of General 
Windham — "Windham of the Redan" — who had 
performed feats of gallantry in the Crimea, and was 
ready for hard service in any part of the world. 

* The orders were, under date ning copies of Lord Clarendon's In- 

July 22, 1856, that measures were structions to the British Consuls in 

to be "immediaielj taken at Bom- Persia to withdraw from that coun- 

bay for the preparation of an expe- try, and of a letter addressed by his 

dition sufficiently powerful to occupy Lordship to the Commissioners for 

tlie island of Karrack in the Persian the Affairs of India, "requiring that 

Gulf, and the district of Bushire on the expedition, which will have been 

the mainland; but the expedition is prepared, under ii^tructions of tlie 

not to sail until further orders shall 22nd of July, shall, as soon as it caa 

have beenreceivedfromthis country." be completed, proceed to its destina- 

On the 26th of September the Secret tion in the Persian Gulf." 
Committee forwarded to Lord Can- 

2e 



418 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

But Lord Canning, whilst thoroughly appreciating 
Windham's gallant services in the field, and knowing 
well that his appointment would be " popular in Eng- 
land," saw that there were strong reasons against it. 
" In a mixed force of Queen's and Company's troops," 
he said, "it is of great importance that there should 
be a willing and earnest co-operation of all subordi- 
nate officers with the Commander, and it is more 
difficult to obtain this for a stranger than for one who 
is known. The Commander should have some ac- 
quaintance with the Indian Army, if he has to lead 
a large force of it into an unknown and difficult 
country. He should know something of its constitu- 
tion, temper, and details — of what it can and what it 
can not do. This would not be the case with Wind- 
ham, fresh landed from England." And it is not to 
be doubted that he was right. If the force had been 
on a larger scale, the Commander-in-Chief himself 
might perhaps have been placed at its head ; but Lord 
Canning, with the highest possible opinion of General 
Anson's fine temper, of the assiduity w^ith which he 
had addressed himself to the business of his high 
office, and the ability with which he had mastered its 
details, had still some misgivings with respect to his 
prejudices, and doubted whether he had not formed 
certain conclusions unjust to the Company's Army. 

On the whole, it was better, in any circumstances, 
that an Indian officer should command; and Lord 
Canning was resolute that such should be the arrange- 
ment. But he had been somewhat perplexed at first 
as to the choice to be made, and he had consulted 
Sir John Lawrence, as the man of all others who, 
not being by profession a soldier, had the finest 
soldierly instincts and the keenest appreciation of th 
essential qualities demanded for the command of s 



THE QUESTION OF COIVMAND. 419 

an expedition. What the great Punjabee adminis- 185G. 
trator said in reply was an utterance of good sense 
and good feeling, the fulness of Avhich, however, was 
not then as discernible as it now is, viewed by the 
light of intervening history. About the answer to be 
given there was no doubt ; but clearly there was some 
difficulty. For the man whom of all men in India he 
held to be best fitted for the work in hand was his 
own brother. Sir Henry Lawrence ; and if he could Heury 
go, accompanied by Colonel Sydney Cotton, all would I^^^^'^^^®^ 
be well. " Cotton," ^vrote John Lawrence to the 
Governor- General, " is one of the best officers I have 
seen in India. He is a thorough soldier, loves his 
profession, and has considerable administrative talent. 
Of all the officers I have noted, with one exception, 
Sydney Cotton is the best." But his experiences, 
great as they were, had not lain in the line of diplo- 
matic action, and, if it were necessary, as Lawrence 
believed, to unite the political and the military au- 
thority in the same person. Cotton, good soldier as he 
was, might clearly lack some of the essential qualifi- 
cations for the double office. So John Laivrence pro- 
ceeded to say: "The man whom I would name for 
the command of such an expedition is my brother 
Henry. I can assure your lordship that I am not in 
the slightest degree biased in his favour. He has 
seen a good deal of service, having been in the first 
Burmese war, in the second Afghan war, and in both 
the Sutlej campaigns. He is not an officer of much 
practical knowledge, except in his own branch (the 
Artillery), and he is not fond of details. But, on the 
other hand, he has great natural ability, immense 
force of character, is very popular in his service, has 
large political acumen, and much administrative 
ability. I do not think that there is a military man 

2 E>* 



420 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. in India who is his equal in these points. He is also 
in possession of his full vigour, both of mind and 
"body, and there is not a good soldier of the Bengal 
Army, in the Punjab or perhaps in Upper India, but 
would volunteer to serve under him. With him as 
the Commander, and Sydney Cotton as the Second- 
in-Command, the arrangement would be complete. 
Cotton is master of all technical details of every ai'm 
of the service, and devotes his entire energies and 
thoughts to the welfare of his soldiers." 

All this might have been misunderstood ; and a 
little man, in such a case, would perhaps have hesi- 
tated to recommend his brother ; but John Lawrence 
knew that the advice was good, and that he was in- 
capable of offering it if it had not been. " If I know 
myself," he wrote, " I would revolt against such con- 
duct." But though strong in the conviction that of 
aU men living Henry Lawrence was the best suited to 
the work in hand, he was loud in his praise of other 
good officers, and had various plans to recommend, 
any one of which might have a successful issue. If 
Sydney Cotton were sent in command, it would be 
well to associate with him such an officer as Herbert 
Edwardes, in the character of political adviser. " But, 
in such matters," said John Lawrence, "unity in 
council and action is of the highest importance, and 
a commander who unites the military and political 
functions is most desirable. If your lordship does 
not take my brother, and Outram is available, I 
would be inclined to recommend him. I never met 
this officer ; but he has a high reputation." And 
John Jacob, as having much military ability and con- 
siderable political experience, was a man not to be 
overlooked in the account of available capacity for 
such an enterprise. 



LORD ELPHINSTONE AND GENERAL STALKER. 421 

But not only in Calcutta and in the Punjab was 1856» 
this question of the command of the expedition being 
considered. It was well pondered at Bombay and in 
England, taking a shape eventually to overrule all 
other decisions. The expedition was to sail from 
Bombay, and all the arrangements for its organisation 
and equipment were proceeding there. Lord Elphin- Lord 
stone was Governor of that Presidency. Twenty years '^ ^''^^ ^^^ 
before he had been Governor of Madras. At that time 
he was young, and not so serious and sedate as some 
people thought the head of a Government ought to 
be. " We want a Governor," it was said, somewhat 
bitterly, "and they send us a Guardsman ; we want 
a statesman, and they send us a dancer." But he had 
ripened into what these people wanted, and now with 
a higher sense of the responsibilities of office, with 
a keener pleasure in his work, and a statesmanlike 
assiduity, for which the companions of his youth had 
not given him credit, he was, a second time, ad- 
ministering the affairs of an Indian Presidenc}^, and 
busying himself with our external relations. The 
troops to be despatched, in the first instance, to the 
Persian Gulf were mainly Bombay troops, and it 
seemed fitting that the choice of a Commander should 
be made from the Bombay Army. If under stress 
of circumstance the war should assume more im- 
portant dimensions, and the military force be pro- 
portionably extended, another selection might be 
made. But meanwhile, Elphinstone was requested 
to name some officer attached to his own Presidency, 
in whom the troops of all arms would have common 
confidence. So he named General Stalker, not with- 
3ut a pang of regret that he could not select Colonel 
Hancock — Hancock, the Adjutant -General of the 
Bom])ay Army— -whom ill health was driving to Eng- 



422 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY 

1856. land. Stalker was tlie senior of the available officers, 
so there were no heart-burnings from supersession ; 
he had seen much service, he was experienced in com- 
mand, and it was believed that the appointment 
would be both a popular and a safe one. "I hear 
favourable accounts of his good sense and temper," 
said Lord Canning ; " and that is what is wanted for 
the service before him, which will require more of 
patient and enduring than of brilliant qualities." 
James So General Stalker was appointed to the command 

of the expedition to the Persian Gulf. But whilst 
these and other arrangements were being made in 
India, in the belief that ere long they would be 
merged into others of a more comprehensive cha- 
racter, the question of the chief command was being 
solved in England in a manner hardly anticipated 
by the Governor- General. In the month of May he 
had taken leave of Sir James Outram, with painful 
misgivings raised in his mind by the sight of the Gene- 
ral's shattered frame and feeble bearing. He had sus- 
pected that the mischief was far greater than Outram 
himself acknowledged or believed, and thought that 
years must elapse before he would be fit again for 
active service. And so thought all his friends in Eng- 
land. He appeared among them as the wreck only of 
the strong man who had left them a short time before ; 
and they grieved to see the too visible signs of weak- 
ness and suffering which every look and gesture af- 
forded. The summer faded into autumn ; but there 
was little change for the better apparent in his outer 
aspect, when suddenly they were startled by the an- 
nouncement that he was about forthwith to proceed 
to the Persian Gulf and take command of the ex- 
pedition. 

Nobody knew, nobody knows, how it happened 



SIR JAMES OUTKAM. 423 

that suddenly in this conjuncture, James Outram 1850. 
shook off the incumbrances of disease, rose up from 
the prostration of the sick-room, and stood erect, 
active, robust before the world with the harness of 
war on his back. It was the autumnal season, when 
men scatter and disperse themselves in strange places, 
and elude in a vagrant life the rumours of the distant 
world ; so there were many friends who, having left 
him at the summer's close a feeble invalid, were struck 
with a strange surprise when, returned or returning 
homewards, they were met by the news that Outram 
had gone or Avas going to Persia to take command of 
the invading force. The wonder soon gave place to 
delight ; lor they knew that though he was moved by 
strong ambitions, there was ever within him a sense 
of duty still stronger, and that on no account would 
he jeopardise the interests of the. State by taking upon 
himself responsibilities which he had not full assurance 
in his inmost self of his ample competence to dis- 
charge. And so it was. The sound of the distant 
strife had rekindled all his smouldering energies. 
There was work to be done, and he felt that he could 
do it. On the pleasant Brighton esplanade, saunter- 
ing alone meditative, or perhaps in the stimulating 
companionship of a stalwart friend and high func- 
tionary, the Chairman of the Court of Directors of the Colonel 
East India Company, Master of Masters, new hopes ^ ^^' 
were wafred upon him with the sea-breezes, and his 
step grew firmer, his carriage more erect, as with 
strong assurance of support from Leadenhall-street, 
he resolved to tender his services to her Majesty's 
Government for employment in Persia with a joint 
military and diplomatic command. 

This was at the beginning of the last week or 
October. On the 26th he wrote to Lord Canning 



424 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. that lie purposed returning to India by tlie mail of 
the 20th of December, ^' having perfectly recovered 
from the illness which drove him home." And he 
added, ^' In the supposition that I may be more use- 
fully employed with the army about to proceed to 
Persia than necessary to your lordship in Oude, where 
everything is progressing so satisfactorily, I have 
offered my services to the President (of the Board of 
Control), should it be deemed advisable to entrust to 
me diplomatic powers in conjunction with the military 
command, and I believe that, should your lordship be 
disposed so to employ me, the home authorities would 
not object. In that case your lordship's commands 
would meet me at Aden, whence I would at once 
proceed to Bombay."^ 

This letter reached Calcutta on the 2nd December. 
By the outgoing mail of the 8th, Lord Canning wrote 
to Outram at Aden, rejoicing in his complete recovery, 
^' on every account, public and private," but question- 
ing the policy of the Persian appointment. The ex- 
pedition, he said, was not likely to increase in magni- 
tude ; it was not probable that there would be any 
operations beyond the seaboard during the winter, or 
that any dijDlomatic action would be taken to call for 
the employment of a high political functionary ; if, 
indeed, overtures were to be made, they would most 
probably be addressed through some friendly power to 
London ; there would be little scope, therefore, for his 
services with the Persian expedition, and it would be 
better, therefore, that he should return to his old ap- 
pointment. " Oude is completely tranquil," wrote Lord 
Canning, "and generally prospering. Nevertheless, 

* So full was Outram at this time advent of the happy day of release, 
of the thought of his departure in that he dated this letter "Decem- 
December, and so ca^-er for the ber" instead of October. 



APPOINTMENT TO THE PERSIAN COMMAND. 425 

I shall be very glad to see you resume your command iS56, 
there." The fact was that the Administration was by 
this time plunged into such a bopeless condition of 
internecine strife, that the Governor- General could 
in no way see any outlet of escape from the per- 
plexities besetting him except by the removal of 
Chief-Commissioner Jackson ; and now here was the 
opportunity, for which he had been waiting, to ac- 
complish this end in an easy natural manner, without 
any official scandal, or the infliction of any personal 
pain. 

But it was not to be so accomplished. Before the 
end of November the question of Outram's command 
of the Persian expedition had been fully discussed in 
the English Cabinet. Downing-street had laid fast 
hold of the idea, and pronounced its full satisfaction 
with it. Her Majesty the Queen had stamped the 
commission with the seal of her approbation, and the 
public voice, with one accord, had proclaimed that a 
good thing had been done, and that the right man 
would soon be in the right place. That it was thus 
virtually settled, past recal, went out, under the Pre- 
sident's hand by the mail of the 26th of November, 
and greeted Lord Canning with the new year. Tn 
official language, however, of Court of Directors, or 
Secret Committee thereof, it took the shape not of an 
announcement of a thing done, but of a recommenda- 
tion that it should be done ; for it was substantially an 
interference with the prerogative of the Governor- 
General, and was to be softened down so as in no wise 
to give offence. But Lord Canning was not a man, 
in such a case, to raise a question of privilege, or, 
assured that it was, actually or presumedly, for the 
official good, to shoot out any porcupine-quills from 
his wounded official dignity. He took the interference 



426 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. in good part ; thanked the Chairman for the delicacy 
with which it had been communicated, and promised 
to give Outram his best support. He had doubted, 
he said, whether Outram's health and strength would 
be sufficient to bear the burdens that would be im- 
posed upon him. ^'But the Queen's Government," 
he continued, " and the Secret Committee have seen 
him in recovered health, and if they are satisfied that 
he is in a condition to undertake the labour and trial 
of such a command, without risk to the interest con- 
fided to him, I have no objection to make, nor any 
wish to shake myself clear of responsibility." And 
then, with a reference to a memorandum on the future 
conduct of the campaign which Outram had drawn 
up in England, the Governor- General added, " It is a 
pleasure to me to declare that I have been greatly 
struck by all that has proceeded from General Outram 
in regard to future operations in Persia. I think his 
plans excellent, prmdent for the present, and capable 
of easy expansion hereafter, and the means which he 
proposes for carrying them out for the most part well 
suited. For everything that I have yet heard of his 
proposals he shall have my cordial support." 

1857. Whilst the first division of the expeditionary force 
Central-Asian under Stalker was commencing operations with good 
Policy. success in the Persian Gulf, the new year found 

Outram at Bombay superintending the despatch of 
the second. But it was not only by these move- 
ments from the sea-board that an impression was 
now to be made on the fears of the Court of Teheran. 
Diplomacy was to do its work in the country which 
lay between India and Persia. Reluctant as he had 
been, in the earlier part of the year, to commit him- 
self to any decided course of Central-Asian policy. 
Lord Canning now began to discern more clearly 



CENTRAL-ASIAN POLICY. 427 

tlie benefits that might arise from a friendly alliance 185P.. 
with the Ameer of Caubul. There was no longer any 
chance of a pacific solution of our difficulties. War 
had been proclaimed. Herat had fallen. Dost Ma- 
homed had put forth plentiful indications of a strong 
desire for an English alliance ; and the English Go- 
vernment at home appeared to be not unwilling to 
meet his wishes. That some action must now be 
taken in that direction was certain. Already had 
arms and money been sent into Afghanistan ; but 
with no specific undertaking on the one side or the 
other, and it appeared desirable to put the matter 
now upon a more secure and a more dignified footing 
than that of temporary shifts and expedients. But 
there were great diversities of opinion as to the shape 
which should be taken by British action in the 
Afghan countries. Lord Canning had always had at 
least one clear conception about the matter ; that it 
was better to do little than to do much, and wise not 
to do that little a day sooner than was needed. The 
terrible lessons which had been burnt into us fifteen 
years before had lost none of their significance. The 
warning voice was still sounding in our ears; the 
saving hand was still beckoning us away from those 
gloomy passes. It could never again enter into our 
imaginations to conceive the idea of turning back the 
tide of Russo-Persian invasion by making war against 
the national will and the substantive Government of 
the Afghans. But the monitions of the Past did not 
stop there. They cautioned us against ever sending 
a single British regiment across the Afghan frontier. 
Neither the Prmces nor the People of Afghanistan 
were to be trusted, if the memories of their ^vrongs 
were to be reawakened within them by the presence 
of that which had done them such orievous harm. 



428 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1S56. So, although among the schemes which were dis- 
cussed, and in some military quarters advocated, was 
the project of an auxiliary British force, acting in 
close alliance with the Afghans, it was never for a 
moment seriously entertained in the Council Cham- 
ber. But to assail Persia in some measure from that 
side, whilst we wxre operating upon the sea-board; 
to recover Herat, and, at the same time, to occupy 
some of the littoral provinces of the Persian Empire ; 
was doubtless to put enormous pressure upon the 
Shah, to hold him, as it were, in a vice, helpless and 
ao-onised, and to extort from him all that we mioht 
want. This, peradventure, might be done, by con- 
tinuing to send British bayonets into Afghanistan, 
but without, as of old, British valour to wield them ; 
so many thousands of stands of arms, not so many 
thousands of soldiers ; and British moi:ey, lakhs 
upon lakhs, but no British hands to dispense it. In 
a word, if we could manage successfully to subsidise 
Dost Mahomed, and hold him, by the bonds of self- 
interest, to a friendly covenant, ivhereby, whilst aid- 
ing us he would aid himself, we might bring the war 
much more rapidly to a conclusion than if no such 
alliance were formed. 

But there were strong doubts of the good faith of 
Dost Mahomed. The wily old Ameer, it was said, 
was waiting upon the shore of circumstance, willing 
to sail in the same boat with us, if tide and stream 
should be in our favour and a fair wind setting in 
for success. For some time, there had been going on 
between the Governor- General of India and the 
Ruler of Caubul certain passages of diplomatic 
coquetry, which had resulted rather in a promise 
of a close alliance, a kind of indefinite betrothal, 
than in the actual accomplishment of the fact. We 



BOST MAHOMED KHAN. 429 

had condoned the oifence committed by the Ameer is to. 
at the close of tke last war in the Punjab, when he 
had sent some of his best troops, in the uniforms of 
our own slaughtered soldiers, to aid the Sikhs in 
their efforts to expel us ; and whilst Dalhousie was 
still the ruler of India, an engagement of general Marcli 30, 
amity had been negotiated by John Lawrence on the -'■^^^* 
one side, and Hyder Khan on the other, between the 
English and the Afghans. It was probably intended, 
with a forecast of the coming rupture with Persia, 
that this should in time be expanded into a more 
definite treaty with Dost Mahomed ; and more than 
two years before the occasion actually arose, the sub- 
sidising of the Ameer loomed in the distance.* It 
was an old idea. Mr. Henry Ellis had entertained 
it ; Sir John M'Neill had entertained it ;f and if 
Lord Auckland's Secretaries had allowed him to 
entertain it, it is probable that the events of which I 
am about to write would never have afforded me 
a subject of History. In an hour of miserable in- 
fatuation, we had played the perilous game of King- 
making, and had forced an unpopular pageant upon 

* It was talked of, indeed, before interference beyond tlie passes, and 

the compact of 1855, but did not no backing of one party or an- 

form a part of it. In 1854 (June 19), other." 

Sir Henry Lawrence wrote to the f One passage in Sir John 
autlior : " I fancy that we shall have M'Neill's early correspondence I 
some sort of Treaty with Dost Ma- cannot help quoting. There is rare 
homed, unless Lord Dalhousie over- prescience in it : " Dost Maliomed 
reach himself by too great anxiety Kiian, with a little aid from us, 
and by agreeing to pay him a sub- could be put in possession of both 
sidy. If Persia attack Afghanistan, Candahar and Herat. I anxiously 
the help we should give the latter hope that aid will not be with- 
siiould be by attacking Persia from held. A loan of money would pro- 
the Gulf. We should not send a bably enable him to do this, and 
rupee or a man into Afghanistan, would give us a great hold upon 
We should express readiness to for- him. . . . Until Dost Mahomed or 
give and forget, to cry quits in some other Afghan shall have got 
Afghan matters, and pledge our- both Candahar and Herat into his 
selves to live as good neighbours in hands, our position here must con- 
future j but there ought to be no tinue to be a false one." 



430 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. a reluctant people. Now, after bitter experience, we 
were reverting to the first conception of our diplo- 
matists ; but mild as comparatively the interference 
was, it was held by some great authorities to be wiser 
to leave Afghanistan and the Afghans altogether 
alone. In spite of the present benefit to be derived 
from applying in that quarter a blister to the side of 
Persia, it might be better to suffer the old Ameer to 
make the most of the crisis after his own fashion. 
He would not fight our battles for us without sub- 
stantial help ; but he might fight his own, and there 
could be no time, for the extension of his dominion 
to Herat, so opportune as that which saw Persia 
entangled in a war with England. But Dost Ma- 
homed had too clear a knowledge of the English, 
and Afghan cupidity was too strong within him, to 
sufi'er this gratuitous co-operation. He knew that, if 
he waited, we should purchase his aid ; so he magni- 
fied the difiiculties of the march to Herat, talked of 
the deficiency of his resources, and otherwise pre- 
tended that he lacked strength for a successful enter- 
prise without continuous pecuniary aid from the 
English. Whether, having received such assistance 
from us, he would render efi*ectual service in return 
for it, seemed to some of our Indian statesmen ex- 
tremely doubtful, for there was the lowest possible 
estimate in their minds of Afghan truth and Afghan 
honour. There was the fear that the old Ameer 
would set an extravagant price on his services, and 
that by disappointing his expectations, if not scout- 
ing his pretensions, we might inopportunely excite 
his animosities against us. Some, indeed, thought 
that he looked eagerly to the conjuncture as one that 
might help him to realise his old day-dream, the 
recovery of Peshawur. There was, in truth, no lack 



HERBERT EDWARDES. 431 

of sagacity in these anticipations; but, perhaps, at 185C. 
the bottom of them there lay too deep a distrust of 
the personal character of the Ameer. He had, in all 
candour it must be admitted, too much reason to 
doubt the good faith of the English. He could 
fathom the depths of our selfishness as well as we 
could fathom the depths of his guile. In truth, there 
were causes of mutual suspicion ; and little good was 
likely to come from the distant fencing of diplomatic 
correspondence. So at last it was resolved to test 
the sincerity of the Ameer by inviting him to a con- 
ference on the frontier. 

At that time, Herbert Edwardes, he of whose Herbert 
glorious youthful impulses I have spoken in the first 
chapter of this work, was Commissioner of Peshawur. 
He had grown, by good-service brevet, rather than 
by the slow process of regimental promotion, from 
Lieutenant to Lieutenant-Colonel. His career had 
been a prosperous one, and its prosperity was well 
deserved. The great reputation which he had gained 
as an ambitious subaltern, brought down upon him 
at one time a shower of small jealousies and detrac- 
tions. He had been feasted and flattered in England, 
and there were some who, doubtless, with a certain 
self-consciousness of what would be likely to flow 
from such adulations, said that his head was turned, 
and that he had been overrated. But one, the noble 
helpmate of a truly noble man, wrote to me at this Honoria 
time, as one, however, not doubting, for I had like ^^^^^"°®' 
faith, that Herbert Edwardes v^^as one of Nature's 
true nobility, and that surely I should live to know 
it. It was right. Under the Lawrences, Henry and 
John, both of whom he dearly loved, he grew to be 
one of the main pillars of the Punjabee Administra. 
tion ; and now he was in charge of that part of the 



432 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1850. old dominions of Runjit Singh wliicli la}^ beyond 
the Indus ; the Proconsulate of Peshawur. Planted 
thus upon the frontier of Afghanistan, it was one of 
his special duties to watch the progress of events in 
that country, and duly to report upon them to the 
higher authorities. Of direct diplomatic action there 
liad been little or none ; but no one knew what a 
day might produce, and it was ever t?lierefore among 
the responsibilities of the Peshawur Commissioner to 
be well versed in the politics of Caubul, and pre- 
pared, in any conjuncture, to counsel the course to be 
taken by the British Government. 

For some time there had been much to observe 
and much to report, and now" a conjuncture had 
arisen, which seemed to require from us that we 
should act. Persia was doing all that could be done 
to enlist the sympathies of Central Asia on her side, 
even in the far off regions of Bokhara and Kokund, 
by sending abroad, as a proof of the dangers of Eng- 
lish friendship, copies of the pro-Christian Firman 
of the Sultan, which had been issued at the close of 
the Russian war. It was fortunate, therefore, that at 
this time the political animosities of the Afghans 
were strongly excited against the Persians, for, per- 
haps, under such pressure, the chronic sectarian jea- 
lousies which kept the two nations apart might for a 
while have been merged in a common religious 
hatred of the Feringhees. A very little done, or left 
undone on our part, to oifend the old Ameer, might 
have lost to us for ever the only serviceable Mahome- 
dan alliance that could have availed us in such a 
crisis. To no man was the value of this alliance so 
apparent as to Herbert Edwardes ; no man pressed 
its importance so earnestly upon the Govern or- Gene- 
ral. He believed that Dost Mahomed would respond 



IKVITATION TO DOST MAHOMED. 433 

with pleasure to an invitation to meet on the 1S5 
frontier of the two States a representative of the 
British Government, and to discuss the terms of a 
friendly alliance ; and he recommended that this in- 
vitation should be sent to him. Reluctant as Lord 
Canning had been in the earlier part of the year to 
commit himself to any decided course of Afghan 
policy, he now before the close of it, in the altered 
circumstances that had arisen, yielded to this sug- 
gestion, and afterwards, with that frankness which sat 
so becomingly upon him, gracefully acknowledged 
its wisdom, and thanked the suggester. 

So Dost Mahomed was invited to a conference at 
Peshawur. He was, if willing to meet the repre- 
sentatives of the British Government, to discuss per- 
sonally with them the terms of the alliance. Either 
Sir John Lawrence, accompanied by Colonel Ed- 
wardes, or Colonel Edwardes alone, as might be de- 
termined between them, was to meet the old Ameer 
on the frontier, to feel his pulse, and to prescribe 
accordingly. It would have been a great oppor- 
tunity for the younger man ; but Edwardes, to whom 
the decision was left by Lawrence, for ever giving 
the lie to all that had been charged against him on 
the score of vanity and self-assertion, strongly urged 
that the Mission should be headed by his beloved 
Chief LaAvrence much doubting, however, whether 
the Ameer would come, and little expecting a suc- 
cessful issue if he should come, lauded the ma^-na- 
nimity of his more sanguine friend, and prepared 
himself with all the earnestness of his nature to prove 
the groundlessness of his own anticipations of failure. 

They were groundless. The Ameer accepted the 
invitation, marched down with two of his sons, some 
of his chosen counsellors, and a body of picked troops, 

2f 



434 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

che frontier ; and on the first day of tlie new }ear 
received in the Khybur Pass the first visit of the 
British Commissioners. It was with no common in- 
terest that Lawrence, Edwardes, Sydney Cotton, and 
the other English ofiicers who accompanied them, 
looked into the face of the old Ameer, whose white 
beard and venerable aspect had, fifteen years before, 
been so familiar to the eyes of the dwellers in Cal- 
cutta, and who in his fallen fortunes, half-prisoner 
and half-guest, had been a not unworthy object of 
our sympathies. When, nearly half a century before, 
the representatives of the British Government had 
been received almost on the same spot by Shah 
Soojah, they had found the Caubul ruler arrayed in 
gorgeous apparel, his whole person a blaze of jewel- 
lery, with the Koh-i-noor outshining it all ; but the 
English gentlemen now saw before them only a hale 
old man, very simply attired in a garment of the 
coarse camel-hair of the country. They found him 
lull of energy, full of sagacity ; courteous and friendly 
in his outer manner ; glad to welcome them to his 
camp, it was only a visit of ceremony ; repaid, two 
days later, by the Ameer, who was received in the 
grand English style near Peshawur. Our troops 
formed a street more than a mile long, and after 
the Durbar marched past the Ameer and his host in 
review order. More than seven thousand British 
fighting men were assembled there, and among them 
were three complete European regiments, whose 
steady discipline, and solidity, and fine soldierly 
bearing, made a strong impression on the minds of 
the Afghan visitors, from the aged Ameer himself to 
the youngest trooper of his escort. 

The formal interviews thus accomplished, the sn* 
rious business of the conference commenced on the 



THE PESHAWUR CONFERENCES. 435 

5tli of January. The Ameer had pitched his Camp IS57 
at Jumrood, and there Lawrence and Edwardes 
visited him, accompanied by Major Lumsden of the 
Guides. Dost Mahomed, his sons standing behind 
him, and a few chosen Sirdars on his left, opened the 
discussions with a long exposition of the recent 
struggles in Herat, and of the policy which he had 
himself pursued. He had entertained no schemes of 
conquest embracing that principality. The move- 
ments which the Persians had thus pretended to in- 
terpret were directed only towards Candahar. But 
he frankly avowed his eager longing to recover 
Herat ; and, please God and the English, he would 
take it from the Persians. Swearing by Allah and 
the Prophet that, from that time, he would be our 
friend, let all the world be against him, he declared, 
as his enthusiasm kindled, that let the English but 
make a diversion in the Persian Gulf and supply him 
with money and with arms, he would mine the walls 
of Herat, blow up the towers, and take the place at 
the point of the sword ; or raise such a flame in the 
surrounding country as fairly to burn the Persians 
out of it. The Toorcomans and the Usbegs would 
rise at his bidding, and join against a common foe. 

From that distant-frontier post, on the very out- 
skirts of our empire, the telegraphic wires ran right 
up to the vice-regal capital, and the Governor- Gene- 
ral and the Chief Commissioner were corresponding 
by the " lightning post" between Calcutta and Pesha- 
wur. So it happened that whilst John Lawrence and 
Dost Mahomed were in conference, a horseman gal- 
loped up with a message from the former, despatched 
on the preceding day. In it Lord Canning told 
Lawrence that a reinforcement of five thousand men 
would be sent as quickly as possible to the Persian 

2f2 



436 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1857 Gulf; and that amongst the conditions of Peace with 
Persia would be a stipulation that she should with- 
draw her troops from Herat, and renounce for ever 
her pretensions to interfere with Afghanistan. The 
significant words, " You may make use of this," were 
included in the message. But the time had not then 
come for the best use to be made of it ; so John 
Lawrence, reserving the rest for more opportune 
disclosure, announced only that the reinforcements 
were about to be despatched to the Gulf It was his 
design, at that first meeting, to elicit the views and 
intentions of the Ameer rather than to disclose those 
of his own Government.* So, making no promises of 
any kind, he indicated the difficulties that seemed to 
lie in the way of the Afghan ruler, and asked for a 
recital of the means and resources, by which they 
were to be overcome, already at his disposal, and the 
extent of the aid which he would require from the 
English. But this was too momentous a question to 
be answered, without much thought and calculation ; 
so the Ameer, seeking time for deliberation, said that 
he would unfold his views fully at the next meeting ; 
and so the conference broke up for the day. 
January 7, On the 7th, Dost Mahomed, attended by a few 
chosen counsellors, visited the British Camp, and the 
conferences were renewed in the Chief Commissioner's 
tent. Pursuing the old process of drawing- out, John 
Lawrence, at the outset, reminded the Ameer of his 

* This course, though doubtless can contribute towards it, even whilst 

the one that would have suggested it continues the same. For these 

itself to John Lawrence's unaided reasons, it is necessary first that we 

judgment, was expressly dictated by should know wliat he can do; and 

Lord Canning, who had written on next, that we should come to a clear 

the 2nd of December to the Chief understanding as to the conditions 

Commissioner, saying, " It is not cer- upon which he shall receive aid in 

tain that our object will continue the doing it. The meeting ought to clear 

same as the Ameer's ; neither is it up the first point at once." — MS. 

certain to what extent the Ameer Correapojidence. 



1857. 



VIEWS OF THE AMEER. 437 

promise to state fully liis views and intentions; but 1857. 
it required some resolution and perseverance to keep 
the old Afghan to this point, and it was not without 
difficulty that the promised revelation was extorted 
from him. At last he explained that, owing to the 
state of the season, he could not commence his march 
on Herat until after the expiration of a period of two 
months ; grass and young grain would then be spring- 
ing up, and with the aid of some not very elaborate 
commissariat arrangements, he would be able to find 
provisions for his troops ; that he proposed to march 
one column from Balkh and another from Candahar. 
The muster-roll of his troops showed some thirty-five 
thousand men and sixty guns. These, he said, should 
be raised to fifty thousand men with a hundred guns ; 
four-fifths of the men and nearly the whole of the 
guns should, he said, be moved upon Herat. " But," 
he added, ^'if you say take more troops, I will take 
more ; if you say less will suffice, I will take less. I 
have given you my own opinion, but you Sahibs 
know Persia best." But when pressed for a state- 
ment of the amount of aid he would require, he said, 
that on the morrow morning his son, Azim Jah, 
would wait upon the English gentlemen with all the 
required information in a digested form, in order that 
they might judge for themselves. 

So the conference broke up ; and on the following 
day the Ameer s sons, accompanied by a few of his 
ministers, waited upon John Lawrence, and laid 
before him a detailed statement of the finances of 
Afghanistan, and of the military resources of the 
empire ; together with an estimate of the aid that 
would be required from the English to enable the 
Afghans to drive the Persians out of Herat, and to 
hold their own against all comers. The aid that was 



438 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTIXY. 

1S57. thus sought amounted in money to sixty-four lakhs 
cf rupees a year, Avhilst the war lasted, and in muni- 
tions to more than fifty guns, eight thousand stands of 
small arms, and ammunition at discretion. It was more 
than the English Government w^ere likely to be will- 
ing to give, but not more than appeared really to be 
wanted. The largeness of the demand, however, sug- 
gested the idea of a less extensive enterprise ; and so 
Lawrence asked what would be required to enable 
the Afghans, abandoning all aggressive movements, 
to hold their own, without danger of encroachments 
from the westward. The question was not a welcome 
one. The Afghans were hot for an advance on Herat, 
if they were to sit do^vn within their own dominions, 
the Persians would assuredly occupy Furrah. It was 
for the English, of course, to decide upon the course 
to be pursued, but it Avas more in accordance with 
the genius and temper of the Afghans to take vigorous 
action in advance. Still, however, John Lawrence 
pressed for a statement of the requirements of the Af- 
ghans if a strictly defensive policy were maintained. 
The Sirdars could give no answer without consulting 
the Ameer, so the conference broke up ; and next 
day they returned with the statement that, in addi- 
tion to what had already been supplied, four thou- 
sand muskets Avould be required, and money to pay 
eight thousand regular troops ; one-half to be em- 
ployed in the Candahar country, and the other half 
in Balkh. But still they were eager for the larger 
enterprise ; and one of them whispered to Edwardes 
that the enmity between the Afghans and the Persians 
was not merely an affair of this world, for that 
Sheeahs and Soonees must always hate each other in 
the world to come. There was nothing more now 
to be said. The Afghans, on their part, had made 



TELEGRAPHIC ACTION. 439 

known their wishes ; and all the English gentlemen 1857. 
could say in reply was, that they would at once com- 
municate with their Government. 

So the telegraphic wires were again set in motion, 
and the substance of what had passed at the two last 
meetings was communicated to the Governor-General 
at Calcutta. Then there was doubt in the Council 
Chamber. Would it be better to await detailed re- 
ports from Peshawur by post, or at once to send 
telegraphic instructions to Sir John Lawrence ? The 
former course was determined upon, and a message 
to that effect despatched to Peshawur. Lawrence 
had sent in detailed reports of the meetings, and had 
added to the last an expression of his ow^n views as to 
what should be done. He recommended that as- 
sistance on the larger scale, for the siege of Herat, 
should not be given to Dost Mahomed, but that we 
should give him the four thousand muskets that he 
required, and an annual subsidy of twelve lakhs of 
rupees, so long as England and Persia might be at 
war with each other. But it did not seem to him to 
be wise to await the slow process of correspondence 
by letter. The Ameer was eager to depart ; and some 
time must be necessarily occupied in the negotiation 
of a formal agreement. So Lawrence telegraphed 
the substance of his recommendation to Calcutta, 
urged that nothing would be gained by awaiting his 
more detailed reports, and asked permission to com- 
municate to the Ameer the proposal which he thought 
it best to make. To this a message was promptly 
returned, saying : " You may tell the Ameer that 
the terms are agreed to. Four thousand stand of 
arms and twelve lakhs a year, whilst England is at 
war with Persia. You ^vill proceed to arrange the 
articles of agreement and report them by telegraph." 



440 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

15557. This message was despatched on the 13th of 

January. On the following morning Lawrence and 
Edwardes proceeded to Dost Mahomed's camp, and 
unfolded to him the views and intentions of the 
British Government. With less appearance of dis- 
appointment than had been expected, the Ameer 
assented to the abandonment of the expedition to 
Herat, and accepted the modified proposal of the 
English. But the despatch of a party of British 
officers to Caubul, which was to form part of the 
agreement, appeared to be distasteful to him. When 
active offensive warfare against Persia had been con- 
templated, he cherished the thought of their presence 
with his troops; but now the state of affairs was 
altered. The point, however, was one not to be 
yielded. If the British were to give the subsidy, 
they were entitled to see it rightly appropriated. 
Then the Ameer lowered his tone, and said that he 
was ready to do what was expedient ; and finally he 
agreed to all that was proposed. But next day, when 
his son Azim Khan, accompanied by other chiefs, 
visited, according to agreement, the English Com- 
missioners, to settle the precise terms of agreement, 
the question of the Mission to Caubul was reopened. 
It was urged that the appearance of British officers 
at the Afghan capital might compromise the Ameer 
either with his own people or with his English friends. 
There would be danger in their path at Caubul ; but 
at Candahar, threatened by the Persians, their pre- 
sence would be better understood, and they might 
abide in perfect security. Nearly fifteen years had 
passed since our retributive Army had set its mark 
upon the Afghan capital ; but still the hatred which 
our usurpation had engendered was fresh in the 
minds of the people, and Dost Mahomed knew that 



THE MISSION TO CMDAHAR. 441 

there were those in Caubul whom he could not trust 1857. 
within reach of an English throat. It was a sad 
thought; and Lawrence could not but ask how the 
alliance between the two nations could ever strike 
deep root when in one country such suspicions and 
animosities were never suffered to sleep. What the 
English wanted was not a temporary alliance dic- 
tated by an emergency of self-interest, but an en- 
during friendship based upon mutual confidence and 
respect. But Dost Mahomed knew the Afghans well, 
and little wisdom would there have been in disre- 
garding a warning which every Englishman's heart 
must have told him was an utterance of the voice of 
truth. So it was resolved that, although we should 
claim, and duly record, our right to send British 
officers to Caubul, as to other parts of Afghanistan, 
yet that practically the Mission should, in the first 
instance, proceed only to Candahar. It was better 
than that our officers should be smuggled into the 
capital, surrounded by the Ameer s troops, virtually 
prisoners under the name of protected guests. There 
was, at all events, some definite meaning in their 
proceeding to the more western city, for it was a 
better point from which to observe the movements of 
the Persians. But what route were they to take ? 
It was the Ameer's wish that the Mission should pro- 
ceed by way of the Bolan Pass ; but this, although 
the route by which Shah Soojah and the Army of 
the Indus had marched into Afghanistan, was said to 
be entering the country by a back door. It was, 
therefore, finally determined that the Mission should 
proceed by way of the Paiwar Pass,* an unexplored 

* " It -was deemed advisable that been traversed by Europeans, and 

the Mission should journey to Can- was consequently unknown ground, 

dahar by the route of the Paiwar and full of interest to the British in 

Pass, a road that had never before a military point of view, as being oue 



442 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1857. road, to Candaliar ; and that Major Henry Lumsden, 
of the Guide corps, an officer of great courage and 
capacity, versed in the politics of Afghanistan, who 
had been marked from the first for the conduct of 
this enterprise, should be placed at its head. His 
brother, Lieutenant Peter Lumsden, was to accom- 
pany him, and Mr. Henry Belle w was selected to 
take medical charge of the Mission ; a post of more 
importance than it appears to be in an official gazette, 
for in such diplomacies as these the Medicine-chest 
and the Lancet are often more serviceable than the 
Portfolio and the Pen. 

On the 26th of January, the Articles of Agree- 
ment, having by the aid of the telegraph been ap- 
proved by the Government at Calcutta, were ready 
for seal and signature ; and a meeting for the con- 
clusion of the compact was held in Dost Mahomed's 
tent. In attendance on the Ameer were his son 
Azim Khan and several of his chief counsellors, 
whilst Lawrence, Edwardes, and Lumsden appeared 
on behalf of the English. Written in Persian and 
in English, the articles of agreement were read aloud 
in Durbar. By these the Ameer engaged to maintain 
a force of eighteen thousand men ; to allow British 
officers to be stationed at Caubul, Candahar, or 
Balkh, or wherever Afghan troops might be posted ; 
to receive a Wakeel at Caubul, and to send one to 
Calcutta ; and to communicate to the Government 
of India any overtures that he might receive from 
Persia and from the Allies of Persia during the war. 
On their part, the English undertook, during the 
continuance of hostilities, to pay to the Ameer a 
monthly subsidy of a lakh of rupees, to send him 

of the approaches by which an in- pire." — Bellew's Journal of a Politi' 
vading force from the West mif^ht cal Mission to Afghanistan in 1857. 
enter and attack their Indian Era- 



THE TREATY CONCLUDED. 443 

four thousand stands of arms, and, as if the wrong 1857 
done had been all against us, to forget and forgive 
the past. It was explained that the British officers 
would in the first instance proceed to Candahar ; and 
with this assurance the Ameer was satisfied. So the 
Articles of Agreement were signed and sealed. Then 
came some discussion and some interchange of com- 
pliments. A message from the Governor-General 
had been received by telegraph, desiring Sir John 
Lawrence to express to Dost Mahomed "the satisfac- 
tion which he had derived from his frank dealing, 
and from the clear understanding on which affairs 
had been placed," together with the best wishes for 
liis health and long life, and a word of regret that he 
had not himself been able to meet the Ameer. The 
message Avas now delivered and received with mani- 
fest gratification. It would have delighted him, he 
said, to meet Lord Canning, but he could not expect 
his Lordship to take so long a journey to see him. 
He had known two Governor-Generals, Lord Auck- 
land and Lord Ellenborough, who had been kind to 
him in old times ; he remembered also with gratitude 
the kindness of two other English gentlemen, Mr. 
Wilberforce Bird and Mr. Thoby Prinsep,* who had 
paid him much attention in Calcutta. "And now," 
he said, in conclusion, "I have made an alliance 
with the British Government, and come what may, I 
will keep it till death." And the promise thus given 
was never broken. He was true to the English 
alliance to the last. 

On the following day a Durbar was held in the January 27, 
Camp of the British Commissioner, and the chief ^^^^' 
officers of the Ameer's suite attended to take their 
leave of the English gentlemen. Dost Mahomed had 

* Then members of the Supreme Council of India. 



444 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1857. excused himself on tlie plea of age and infirmity. 
The visit to Peshawur, with its attendunt anxieties 
and excitements, had visibly aifected the Ameers 
health. The hale old man, who, three or four weeks 
before, had spent hours in the saddle, and seemed to 
be full of health and energy, had lost much of his 
bodily vigour and his elasticity of spirit. A sharp 
attack of gout had prostrated him; and he seemed 
to be growing impatient under his protracted deten- 
tion in Camp. So the conclusion of the Terms of 
Agreement was a manifest relief to him ; and it was 
with no common satisfaction that, on the day follow- 
ing the Farewell Durbar, he set his face towards 
Jellalabad, carrying with him, in bills on Caubul, 
a lakh of rupees and some costly presents from the 
British Government.* 

Nor was the gratification experienced at this time 
confined to the Ameer's camp. Lawrence and Ed- 
wardes were well pleased to think that all had gone 
off so smoothly ; that the friendship of the Afghans 
had been secured at no very extravagant cost ; and 
that, on the whole, although Dost Mahomed had not 
obtained all that he had asked, he had taken his 
departure tolerably well satisfied with the favourable 
issue of the meeting. Lord Canning, too, was more 
than well satisfied with the manner in which the 
negotiations had been conducted, and with the ap- 
parent result. He was one not stinting in free out- 
spoken expressions of praise and gratitude to those 
who did good service to his Government; and, both 

* The only present made by the ing the "pins and needles" brought 

Afgh can ruler to his allies consisted by Burnes, which had caused so much 

of a batch of wretched horses, all of disappointment some twenty years 

which, John Lawrence wrote, were before at Caubul, did not expect, on 

spavined or worn out. The whole this occasion, to be the recipient of 

were sold for not more than 100/. anything more valuable. 
Perhaps Dost Mahomed, remember- 



THANKS OF THE GOVERXOR- GENERAL. 445 

in public and private letters, lie cordially thanked 1857. 
the Commissioners, even before their work was done, 
for the admirable judgment and good tact which 
they had displayed at the conferences ; giving an 
especial word of thanks to Edwardes as the original 
suggester of the meeting,* and, it might have been 
added, the originator of the new policy which had 
more recently been observed towards the Afghans. 
To Major Lumsden he wrote, at the same time, a 
letter of kindly encouragement and good advice, 
cordially approving the selection, " not only from his 
trust in Sir John Lawrence's judgment on such 
matters, but from everything that the Governor- 
General had been able to hear of Lumsden from 
those who knew him." He knew the power of such 
words ; as a statesman he felt assured that they 
would bear good fruit ; but as a man he uttered 
them from the kindness of his heart. 

So Dost Mahomed set his face towards Caubul, and 
Sir John Lawrence, after a month of administrative 
journeying about the province, returned to Lahore. 
It need be no subject of surprise if the latter, as he 
went about his work^ thinking of all that had been 
done at Peshawur, sometimes asked himself, What 
good? and wished that the monthly lakh of rupees 
to be expended on the Afghan Army were available 

* "I must ask you," wrote Lord one. It would be a good thing if all 
Canning to Colonel Edwardes on the diplomatic conferences were con- 
19th of January, "to accept my best ducted so satisfactorily, and set forth 
thanks for the part you have taken in aslucidly as these have been." All 
the recent negotiations, and for their this was well deserved ; for the 
satisfactory issue. I feel the more policy was emphatically Edwardes's 
bound to do this, because the first policy ; he had been the first to re- 
suggestion of a meeting came from commend, in Lord Dalhousie's time, 
you ; and so far as I can judge from that we should try the eff'ect of trust- 
the reports as yet received, and from ing the Afghans, and his recom- 
the tone of the discussion shown in mendations had resulted in the ge- 
them, I believe that the suggestion neral compact of 1S55. 
has proved a very wise and useful 



446 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1S57. for the improvement of the province under his 
charge ; for he had never liked the project from the 
beginnino:. He had no faith in Dost Mahomed. He 
had detected him in at least one palpable falsehood, 
and the detection had excited in the Ameer no sense 
of shame, but rather a feeling of admiration at the 
clever incredulity of the Feringhees. The expulsion 
of the Persians from Herat, or even the raising of the 
Turcoman tribes, was, in Lawrence's opinion, so far 
beyond the power of the Ameer, that he believed, on 
the other hand, that the Persians would have little 
difficulty in seizing Candahar. This belief in the 
weakness of Dost Mahomed was based upon a some- 
what exaggerated estimate of the disunion among 
the chief people of the country. But even if the 
Ameer had the power, Lawrence could not believe 
that he had the will to serve the British ; and he 
doubted, therefore, whether the subsidy would pro- 
duce any tangible results. As to the question of the 
future of Herat, it had never even approached a solu- 
tion. Dost Mahomed had been assured that the 
evacuation of the place by the Persians would be an 
essential condition of peace; but he had not been 
able to offer, without manifest doubt and hesitation, 
any suggestion as to the best means of providing for 
its future government. In truth, there was a lack of 
available capacity in the direction in which it was 
most natural that we should look for a new ruler. 
When the Ameer was asked if there was any member 
of Yar Mahomed's family to whom the government 
could be entrusted, he replied that there was a 
brother of Syud Mahomed, but that, if possible, he 
was a greater reprobate and a greater fool than that 
unlucky chief. Syud Mahomed, however, had left a 



THE FUTURE OF HERAT. 447 

son, a boy of some ten years, in whose name a com- ISf?. 
petent Wuzeer might administer the affairs of the 
principality ; but a competent Wuzeer was not to be 
found more readily than a competent Prince. The 
future of Herat was, therefore, left to the develop- 
ment of the Chapter of Accidents. In the mean 
while. Lord Canning, though he had slowly come to 
this point, believed that the subsidising of the Ameer * 
was not a bad stroke of policy. It bound the Afghan 
ruler by strong ties of self-interest to remain faithful 
to the British Government. Even neutrality was 
great gain at a time when Persia was doing her best 
to raise a fervour of religious hatred against the 
Eno^lish throughout all the countries of Central Asia. 
The very knowledge, indeed, of the fact that Dost 
Mahomed had gone doAvn to Peshawur to negotiate a 
closer alliance with the British, must have had a 
moral effect at Teheran by no means conducive to an 
increased confidence in the Shah's powers of resist- 
ance. Altogether, it was not an inefficacious, whilst 
comparatively it was an inexpensive, mode of pressing 
upon Persia from the side of Afghanistan. But whilst 
he went thus far. Lord Canning was resolute to go 
no farther. He had made up his mind that the in- 
dependence of Herat could be written only on sand ; 
that the waves of circumstance from one direction or 
another must utterly efface it after a while ; and that 
it would be wiser to abandon an effort that was so 
fraught with tribulation, and so sure to result in 
failure. Certain he was that nothing would ever in- 
duce him to send a single regiment into Afghanistan 
to maintain the integrity of a petty state, which 
Nature seemed to have intended to be a part of 
Persia or a part of Afghanistan, and which, as in a 



448 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1S57. national and religious sense It assuredly belonged ^.o 
the latter, was certain, if left to itself, eventually to 
fall into the right hands.* 



The question Whilst thus. In this first month of the new year, 
Commis-^ ^ Lord Canning was eagerly watching the progress of 
sionership. liis foreign policy, he was grappling with the great 
difficulty which beset his internal administration. 
The question of the Persian command had been 
settled; but it unsettled, by its solution, that other 
question of the Oude Commissionership. It was 
clearer than ever that Jackson must be removed ; but 
it was no longer possible that his tenure of office 
should come to a natural end and peacefully die out. 
It was necessary to lay violent hands upon it, and 
bring it to an ignominious close. The necessity was 
painful to Lord Canning ; but the interests of the 
State demanded it, and the Governor- General, in such 
a case, properly overrode the man. Therefore, as 
Outram could not quietly resume his old seat, another 
officer was to be found to take the place of Commis- 
sioner Jackson. Ample admissions were there of zeal 
and ability, of assiduous devotion to public business, 
of much good work well done in the province ; but 
the tone and temper of the man, his contentious spirit, 
his insolent treatment of his colleagues, were past bear- 

* Dost Mahomed and his counsel- to place themselves in a better posi- 

lors, during the conferences at Pesha- tion to demand from others a like 

wur, frequently asserted that Persia observance of treaty obligations. It 

had, on tiiis as on a former occasion, may be noted here, that the Ameer 

been instigated and aided by Russia told Lawrence at Peshawur that he 

to occupy Herat. I can discern no would show him the letter which 

evidence of this. Prince Gortscha- the unfortunate Russian diplomatist, 

koff assured Lord Granville at Mos- Viktevitch, had carried with him to 

cow that the Russian minister at Caubul from the Government of the 

leheran had urged the Persian Go- Czar. But he did not produce it 

vernment to evacuate Herat, and so after all. 



THE OUDE COMMISSIONEESHIP. 4.49 

ing ; and communication to that effect, with notice of 18&7r 
appointment of a successor, was made to him in due 
course. 

The choice was an admirable one. It has been said 
that in the spring of 1856, Sir Henry Lawrence had 
offered his services to the Governor-General, to offi- 
ciate as Chief Commissioner of Oude, in Outram's 
absence^ and that the first disaster that befel Lord 
Canning was that the offer was received too late.* 
When Henry Lawrence found that it was so, he saw 
at once the weak point of the arrangement, and an 
idea struck him that if whilst the civil administration 
of the province was placed in Jackson's hands, he 
himself were vested with political and military au- 
thority in Oude, all objects might be advantageously 
secured. It was but a passing thought, a fleeting 
suggestion; but it found expression in a letter ad- 
dressed to the Governor- General, who said, " Two 
Consuls and Two Tribunes have worked well enough 
in old times, as we all know ; but Two Commissioners 
at Lucknow would have been at a dead lock within a 
month I could not have delayed for a day the send- 
ing of a Third." A truth not to be disputed. So 
Henry Lawrence had fallen back upon his duties 
among those intractable Rajpoots ; grieving over their 
degeneracy, striving mightily, but with no great success, 
to evolve something of good out of their transition- 
state, and at last admitting that the peace and security 
we had given them had not yet much improved the 
race. All through the year he had gone on, in his 
old earnest, unstinting way, doing what he could, 
through divers channels of beneficence, alike for the 
Ancient Houses and the national Chivalries, whereof 
History and Tradition had given such grand accounts. 

* Ante, page 398. 

2g 



450 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1857'. Biit often had he turned aside from the thought of 
the Princes and the people by whom he was sur- 
rounded to consider the general condition of our 
empire in the East, and most of all our Military 
System, wherein he discerned some rottenness, which 
needed to be arrested lest the entire edifice should 
some day become nothing but a prostrate ruin. 

But as the new year approached, certain prompt- 
ings of failing health inwardly admonished him 
that it would be well to turn his face towards Eng- 
land for a while ; and he had just communicated his 
wishes upon this score to the Governor- General, when 
there sprung up a great need for his services on a 
new and more hopeful field of action. So the answer 
that went back contained the expression of a hope 
that he would reconsider his determination to go 
home and accept the Chief Commissionership of Oude. 
" There is no person in whose hands I Avould so gladly 
January 19. ^nd confidently place the charge," wrote Lord Canning, 
" and my only scruple in offering it to you is, that I 
am proposing that which will interfere with the im- 
mediate recruiting of your health. But I will not for 
this refrain from executing my intention to do so, 
which was formed many days before I received your 
letter." And truly a most wise intention ; formed 
without any doubts and misgivings upon his part, for 
he knew the real character of the man ; but not with- 
out some counsel against it, given in perfect honesty 
and good faith by one honest and faithful to the core, 
but under a false impression, an error afterwards 
frankly admitted. Had the counsellors been many, 
and all of the same singleness and sincerity, and the 
same ripe experience, they could not have turned 
Lord Canning from his good purpose, or shaken his 
conviction that he was right. 



HENRY LAWRENCE. 451 

The invitation reached Henry Lawrence at Nee- TS57. 
much. It came to him, weak and dispirited as he 
was, with all the renovating influence of a breath of 
his native air. It was to him what the distant sound 
of the Persian war had been to James Outram. It 
made the blood course less languidly through his 
veins. With such work as lay before him in Oude, he 
could not be an invalid. The head-shakings of the 
medical profession were nothing, if the practitioners 
learned in physical symptoms took no account of the 
action of the mind. It was the spirit, not the flesh, 
that required rousing. Two great clouds, coming 
from opposite directions, had overshadowed his life, 
blighting both his honourable ambitions and his 
domestic afi*ections ; a heavy disappointment followed 
by a cruel loss. The black-edged paper on which he 
^vrote still spoke of the latter ; a certain sadness of 
tone in all his allusions to his public life told how 
fresli were the wounds of the former. "Annoyances 
try me much more than work," he now wrote to Lord 
Canning. " Work does not oppress me." He could 
work at his desk, he said, for twelve or fifteen hours 
at a time. He had just made a tour of Guzrat, riding 
thirty or forty miles a day, sometimes being in the 
saddle from morning to night, or from night to morn- 
ing. " But," he added, " ever since I was so cavalierly 
elbowed out of the Punjab, I have fretted even to the 
injury of my health. Your lordship's handsome letter 
has quite relieved my mind on that point; so I re- 
peat that if, on this explanation, you think fit to send 
me to Oude^ I am quite ready, and can be there 
within twenty days of receiving your telegraphic 
reply." 

The substance of this letter was telegraphed to 
Calcutta, and it brought back a telegraphic answer. 

2 g2 



452 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

\S57. The convictions on both sides were so strong in 
favour of the arrangement that it was not likely to 
break down under any conditions or reservations on 
either part ; and so it was settled that Henry Law- 
rence should be Chief Commissioner of Oude. " I 
am in great hopes," wrote Lord Canning, " that the 
task being so thoroughly congenial to you, it will sit 
more lightly upon you than, measured by its labour 
alone, might be expected ; and as to my support, 
you shall have it heartily. The field before you is a 
noble one, full of interest and of opportunities for 
good : and I look forward with the greatest con- 
fidence to the results of your exertions in it." So 
Henry Lawrence prepared himself to proceed to 
Lucknow, and was soon on his way thither by easy 
stages; for it was not desired that he should assume 
ofiice before the middle of the following month. 
Halting at Bhurfpore, wbere he took counsel with the 
Political agent and the Engineer ofiicer, and did 
much to give a right direction to their energies, he 
proceeded thence to Agra, which was then the seat of 
the Lieutenant-Governorship of the I^orth-Western 
Provinces. It was vividly remembered afterwards by 
. E. A. one old friend with whom he held sweet communion 
'^ ^* at that time, that though his thoughts were pregnant 

with many grave matters begotten of the great Con- 
dition-of-India Question, and though he conversed of 
many things and many men, there was nothing that 
seemed to press more heavily on his mind than an 
anxious, uncertain feeling with respect to the state of 
the Sepoy Army. There were few civilians in the 
service who knew the Native soldier so well as this 
friend ; and as they talked over certain manifest signs 
and symptoms, and narrated what they had seen and 
heard, each saw plainly that there was a painful sense 



ARRIVAL OF LAWRENCE AT LUCIvNOW. 453 

of comino; dano;er in tlie other's mind. For twelve 3857. 
years Henry Lawrence had been publicly discoursing 
of the defects of our Indian military system, and 
emphatically indicating the dangers which might 
some day overtake the State in the most terrible of 
all shapes, an outburst of the Native Soldiery ;* and 
he now playfully told his friend, but with more of 
sadness than of pleasantry in his speech, that the 
time was not far distant when the Sepoys would 
hold him and the Lieutenant-Governor and other 
" big Brahmins," as hostages in the Fort of Agra, 
until all their demands were granted. 

Still thinking much of this, and mindful that in 
the province to which he was proceeding he would 
stand on vantao:e-o:round for the clear discernment 
of the real causes of the malady, Henry Lawrence 
passed oh to Lucknow. And before day had broken 
on the 20th of March, he had been received, at the 
Residency, by the man whom he had come to sup- 
plant. There must have been pain and embarrass- 
ment on both sides in such a meeting. But before 
he had broken his fast, the new Commissioner sat 
down and wrote a letter to Lord Canning, saying 
that he had had two hours' friendly conversation 
with Mr. Jackson, who had received him alto- 
gether " like a gentleman." He had found a long 
and encouraging letter from the Governor- General 
awaiting him on his arrival; and now he emphati- 
cally replied, " With your lordship's cordial support I 

* See Lawrence's Essays, re- may surely be expected from Na- 

printed from the Calcutta Renew: tives. We shall be unwise to wait, 

" How unmindful we have been tliat for sucli occasion. Come it will, un- 

what occurred in the city of Caubul less anticipated. A Clive may not 

may some day occur at Delhi, be then at hand." The emphatic 

Meerut, or Bareilly" (paf:fe 51). italics are Lawrence's. Otlier pas- 

Again : "What the European officers sages to tlie same effect might be 

have repeatedly done {i.e. mutinied) cited. 



AU 



OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 



I857. have no fear of success." His spirit rose as he thought 
of the work before him. What that work was, what 
he found done and what he found undone in the 
province, when he assumed charge of his new office, 
will be told in a subsequent page of this story. 



%* No better opportunity than 
this may be afforded for a note on 
the opinions of Sir Henry Lawrence 
with respect to the maintenance of 
the Native States of India. Having 
said elsewhere that he was on prin- 
ciple opposed to the "Annexation 
Policy," I recently elicited the fol- 
lowing reply from a distinguished 
writer in the Edinburgh Review : " A 
writer so well informed as Mr. Kaye 
need not have thus held on to the 
skirts of a popular delusion. The 
course which Sir Henry Lawrence 
favoured in respect to Oude, by what- 
ever name it may be called, is plain 
enough. It is a course which, if 
submitted to the ' Law OflBcers of the 
Crown/ as a question of international 
law, would, probably, receive from 
these authorities some name harsher 
than ' annexation.' " To this I think 
it right to reply, that as any opinion 
which I may have formed of the 
sentiments, on this or any other sub- 
ject, of Sir Henry Lawrence, has 
been derived either from oral com- 
munication with him or from his 
letters to myself, I ought not to be 
charged with " hanging on to the 
skirts of a popular delusion." That 
those sentiments were what I have 
represented them to be, I have nume- 
rous proofs in his own handwriting. 
A single extract, however, from his 
correspondence will suffice for all 
purposes. Writing to me from Mount 
Aboo on the 16th of July, 1856, with 
reference to the office under the 
Home Government of India which 



had recently been conferred on me, 
he said : " The appointment must be 
one of the pleasantest, unless, indeed, 
you feel as I do, that Government is 
going too fast, and that we are losing 
our good name among the Native 
States. I confess that I do not like 
the present system, and that I would 
gladly give up salary to change to a 
purely civil or military berth. When 
I read the tirades of the Friend of 
India, I half think myself (with many 
better men, including Elphinstone, 
Munro, and Clerk) a fool. The doc- 
trine now is that it is wicked not to 
knock down and plunder every Native 
prince. My views are exactly what 
they were when I wrote the articles 
for you on the Mahrattas and on 
Oude. My paper on Oude would 
serve as a guide to present doings in 
all points save the disposal of the 
surplus revenue, which assuredly 
ought to be spent in Oude. JNor, 
indeed, do I think that we should 
materially lose, or fail to gain thereby. 
Is it nothing that we should make a 
garden of the nursery of our Sepoys, 
and open out the resources of a pro- 
vince bordering for a thousand miles 
on our old ones ? But I re- 
peat, that my taste for politics is 
gone. There is no confidence left in 
the country ; and one does not feel 
that the people about Government 
House care one straw about one's 
exertions on behalf of the Native 
States." Surely, the trumpet here 
ffives no " ""'*f""^^''" cAiiiin '* 



\mcertain sound.' 



THE UTILE OWVD. 4C5 



CHAPTER III. 

LORD CANNING AND THE NATIVE ABMY — THE CALL FOR " MORE OFFICERS" 
— DREAD OF THE BLACK WATER — THE GENERAL SERVICE ENLISTMENT 
ACT— ANXIETIES AND ALARMS — LORD CANNING AND THE MISSIONARY 
CAUSE— PROSELYTISING OFFICERS — POLITICAL INQUIETUDES— THE PRO- 
PHECY OF FIFTY-SEVEN. 

The anxieties whicli Henry La\^renee carried with The little 
him to Lucknow had then, for some weeks, been dis- January, 
quieting the mind of the Governor-General. The old 1^57. 
year had died out, apparently leaving to its successor 
no greater troubles than those which were inseparable 
from the Persian war ; but before the new year was 
many days old, there arose upon the horizon that 
little cloud no bigger than a man's hand, of which 
Lord Canning, at the great Farewell Banquet of the 
Company, had prophetically spoken. It might be 
little; it might be much. It might be blown away 
by a breath of wind ; or it might expand into terrific 
dimensions, covering the whole heaven as with a pall. 
Anyhow, it had an angry threatening aspect ; and 
the looker-on, being no alarmist, might well wish it 
away. 



Memorable, and, doubtless, well remembered is it Retrospect 
that, when Lord Dalhousie bade farewell to the cares ^ * 



456 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. of Indian Government, lie placed upon record an 
opinion that the condition of the Native soldiery left 
nothing to be desired. There was no reason why 
Lord Canning, at the outset of his career, should not 
take this assertion on trust ; no reason why he should 
not hold to it for a while. He went out to India, 
prepossessed in favour of " the faithful Sepo}^" He 
had, doubtless, read the noble picture which, nearly 
forty years before, his father had ch^awn of the fidelity 
of the Native soldiery of the Company, unshaken by 
threats, unallured by temptations.* There were no 
flutterings of disquiet apparent on the surface to 
raise anxious doubts and misgivings. But he had 
not long taken up the reins of Government, when 
the subject of the Native Army began to occupy his 
thoughts and to afford matter for much grave corre- 
spondence. The vast extension of territory which 
had made famous the career of Lord Dalhousie had 
not been followed by any corresponding extension of 
the Agency by which all this new country was to be 
administered. As so much more civil duty was to be 

* As President of the Board of them from their allegiance, but his 
Control, George Canning had moved, utmost arts were vaiu. The Native 
in the House of Commons, the vote officers and soldiers came to the 
of thanks to Lord Hastings's Army British Commanders with the proofs 
for its service in the Second Mali- of these temptations in their hands, 
ratta war, and in the course of his and renew^ed the pledges of their 
speech had paid this fine tribute io attachment. One man, a non-com- 
the Native Army: *'In doing jus- missioned officer, brought to his cap- 
tice," he said, " to the bravery of tain the sum of 5000 rupees, which 
the Native troops, I must not over- had been presented to him by the 
look another virtue, their fidelity. Peishwah in person, as an earnest of 
Many of the Bombay Army had been reward for desertion. The vengeance 
recruited in the territories of the denounced by the Peishwah was not 
Peishwah ; their property, their an unmeaning menace; it did, in 
friends, their relatives, all that was many instances, fall lieavily on the 
valuable and dear to them, were still relatives of those who resisted his 
in that prince's power. Previously threats and his entreaties; but the 
to the commencement of hostilities, effect was rather to exasperate than 
the Peishwah had spared no pains to repress their ardour in the service 
to seduce and corrupt these troops; to which they liad sworn to ad- 
be abstained from no threats to force here." 



THE CALL FOR MOEE OFFICERS. 457 

donG) it seemed, in strict logical sequence, that tliere 1850, 
was an increased demand for civil servants, and that 
this demand should have been supplied. But govern- 
ment by the Civil Service of the Company was 
costly ; and to have called for increased agency of 
this kind would perhaps have supplied Leadenhall- 
street with an argument against the profitableness of 
annexation. Moreover, there was much rough work 
to be done in our newly-acquired provinces, for 
which, on the whole, perhaps, military administrators 
were better suited than civilians. So the military 
officer, as has before been said, was taken from his 
regimental duties to share in the civil administration 
of the country. Great had been, for this purpose, 
the drain upon the Native regiments, before the 
annexation of Oude. That event brought the as- 
cendant evil to a climax ; and Lord Canning wrote 
home that it had become necessary to add two 
officers to each Native Infantry regiment and four 
to the Europeans. " A request," he wrote, in the 
early part of April, " for an addition to the number 
of officers in each Infantry regiment — European and 
Native — goes home by this mail. Four for each 
European and two for each Native regiment are 
asked. The application comes singly and in a bald 
shape ; because the necessity of an immediate in- 
crease is urgent, and because I have had no time to 
go into the complicated questions of our military 
wants generally." 

There was, indeed, nothing more difficult to under- " More 
stand aright than these military questions; difficult ° ^^^^' 
to experienced statesmen : altogether embarrassing 
and bewildering to a Governor in his novitiate. 
Even this matter of " more officers," so smooth as it 
appeared to be on the surface, when you came to 



458 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. gauge it, was found to contain a deposit of doubt 
and conflict. It was held by some, avIio had studied 
well all the deteriorating influences of which so much 
has been said in these pages, that the cry for " more 
oflicers" was one to be responded to with caution ; 
that, indeed, the Native Army had already too many 
oflicers ; and that now to increase their number 
would be to increase one of the evils that had long 
been impairing its efliciency. That Lord Canning, 
fresh from England, should have taken the more 
popular view of this want of oflicers, was natural; 
and, indeed, it may be said that it was a plain com- 
mon-sense view, not wanting in a certain kind of 
logic. It had become a proverb that the English 
officer was the Backbone of the Native regiment ; 
and, assuredly, tlio administrative demands of our 
new provinces had left these Native regiments, ac- 
cording to the recognised reading, sadly enfeebled 
and incapacitated. All that he now sought to do 
was to restore them somewhat more nearly to their 
normal condition. The remedy seemed to lie on the 
surface, and straightway he exerted himself to supply 
it. But, the theory of the Backbone accepted, it 
was still possible that the vertebral column might be 
weakened by having too many joints ; and therefore 
it was said by a few thoughtful and experienced men, 
emphatically by Sir George Clerk,* that there was 
more danger in giving our Native regiments too 
many English officers than in giving them too few ; 
and for this reason, that being many t\\ey formed a 
society apart and kept aloof from, their men, and 
became altogether in their ways of life too European. 
Doubts such as these, and from such a quarter, 
brought clearly to Lord Canning's mind the fact that 

* Then Secretary to the Board of Control. 



THE MILITARY DEFENCE OF PEGU. 45 D 

the Native Army question was a very difficult one; 1856. 
that it was almost impossible, indeed, whilst avoiding 
one rock, to escape from steering upon another. But 
the call for more officers had been made ; and, per- 
haps, with no want of wisdom. For, although there 
was profound truth in what was said about the evil 
of too much Englishism in the Native Army, the 
Regular Regiments of the Company had been formed 
upon the European model, and the principle of com- 
mand by many officers was a vital part of the system. 
The Irregular system might have been better than 
the Regular, but a Regular Regiment denuded of its 
officers fulfilled the condition of neither. So the 
Home Government recognised the want of more of- 
ficers, and responded to the appeal. 

Another, and still more important question, soon Evils of 
came up for solution. The specific evils, which re- ^o^^-J^ion 
suited from the extension of our dominions, varied in 
accordance with the direction in which we had ex- 
tended them. The acquisition of new territory on 
the south-eastern coast had caused but little political 
excitement in India ; but the very circumstance to 
which we owed our exemption from evils of one 
kind was the immediate source of another class of 
evils. It has been said that the intervention of the 
black waters of the Bay of Bengal cut off the sove- 
reigns of Burmah from the brotherhood of the 
Princes of the great continent of India, and made it 
a matter of small concern whether we gained battles 
or lost them in that part of the world.* But that 
very black water made it difficult for us to garrison 
the country which we had won. The new province Military de- 
of Pegu had been brought administratively under fence of Pegu, 
the Supreme Government of India, and in the first 

* Jute, pp. 67-68. 



460 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. arrangements made for its military defence, the regi- 
ments planted there had been drawn from the Bengal 
Army. But the great bulk of that Army eschewed 
Foreign service.* It was not part. of the conditions, 
under which they had enlisted, that they should cross 
the seas. The Sepoy, on taking service, sw^ore that 
he would never forsake or abandon his colours, and. 
that he w^ould march whithersoever he w^as directed, 
whether wdthin or beyond the territories of the Com- 
pany. Out of the seventy-four regiments composing 
the Native Infantry of the Bengal Army, six only 
were recruited for general service. When more Na- 
tive troops had been required to take part in opera- 
tions beyond the seas, it had been customary to call 

uuteer for volunteers from the limited-service regiments. 

^^" There had been often a free response to this invita- 

tion, and the volunteer corps had done their duty 
well upon Foreign service. In the old times, indeed, 
before the new organisation, they had in this respect 
sho^vn signal devotion ; they had gone willingly to 
remote places beyond the seas and cheerfully endured 
all the miseries and privations of long and boisterous 

1811. voyages. In one year, seven thousand Bengal Sepoys 
had volunteered for service against the French in the 
Mauritius and in Java ; and had served for many 
years in those islands wdth unvarying fidelity and 
good con duct, f But, even in those days, they had 

* " The natives of India liave, tion, than at tlie zpal and attachment 

generally speaking, a rooted dislike they liave often shown upon such 

to the sea; and when we consider trfmg occasions."— Sir Jo/m3Ialcolm 

the great privations and hardships in the (Quarterly Review, vol. xviii. 

to which Hindoos of high caste are p. 399. 

subject on a long voyage, during f The battalions thus formed were 

which some of them, from prejudices the basis of the six general-service 

of caste, subsist solely on parched regiments, in the kter organisation, 

grain, we feel less surprised at the of which mention is made in the 

occasional mutinies, which have been text, 
caused by orders for tlieir eu)barka- 



CONDUCT OF THE THIRTY-EIGHTH. 4G1 

been at times capricious ; and tlieir caprices, as time 1356. 
advanced and their devotion to their officers dimi- 
nished, had grown more frequent and more embar- 
rassing.* The mutiny and massacre at Barrackpore 
had risen out of the demands of the first Burmese 
war, and the second war in those transmarine regions 
had raised up a new crop of difficulties of the old 
type. 

A few sentences will tell all that need be told of 
this last story: The Native troops employed in the 
conquest of Pegu were either Madras troops or the 1852. 
general-service regiments of the Bengal Army. But 
reinforcements were needed, and so a call Avas to be 
made for volunteers. The Thirty-eighth Native Re- Tlie Thitty. 
giment was then at the Presidency. It had served ^^°' ^* 
long and fought gallantly in Afghanistan, and it was 
believed that it would follow its officers to any part 
of the world. But when the day o£ trial came, the 
result was a bitter disappointment. The Sepoys were 
asked whether they would embark for Rangoon to 
take part in the war, or for Arracan, there to relieve 
a general-service regiment, which in that case would 
be sent on to Burmah. Their reply was, that they 
were willing to march anywhere, but that they 
would not volunteer to cross the seas. Perfectly 
respectful in their language, they were firm in their 
refusal. Doubt and suspicion had taken possession 
of their minds. How it happened I do not knoA\^, 
but a belief was afterwards engendered among them, 
that the English Government had a foul design to 
entrap them, and that if they commenced the march 
to the banks of the Irrawaddy, they would at a con- 

* Sir John Malcolm, writing in commanding officers, or from orders 

1817-18, says, that all the mutinies given to go beyond the seas. See 

in the Bengal Army up to that time article, aSove quoted^ in Qnarkrly 

had arisen from the blunders of their Heview. 



462 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. venient point be taken to tlie sea-board and forcibly 
compelled to embark. Lord Dalhousie, taking, there- 
fore, the prudent rather than the vigorous view of 
the situation, and availing himself of the advanced 
state of the season as a plea for the adoption of the 
feebler of the two courses before him, yielded to 
these first symptoms of danger, and decreed that the 
Thirty-eighth should be sent neither to Rangoon nor 
to Arracan, but to the nearer and more inland 
station of Dacca. And so nothing more was heard 
for a time of the disaffection of the Bengal Army. 

The Court of Directors of the East India Com- 
pany, when this business was reported to them, saw 
clearly that it had become difficult to carry on the 
concerns of their vastly extended empire with one- 
half of their Army, and that the more important half, 
bound to render them only a restricted obedience ; 
so they wrote out to the Governor- General that they 
hoped soon to be put in possession of the " senti- 

Octobcr 20, ments of his Government on the expediency of 
adopting such a change in the terms of future enlist- 
ments as might eventually relieve them from similar 
embarrassments." But no action Avas taken during 
the remaining years of Lord Dalhousie's administra- 
tion, and Lord Canning found, on his accession, 
that still but a twelfth part of the Bengal Army was 
available for service beyond the seas. What then 

I^eliefs for was to be douc, wlicn reliefs were required for Pegu ? 
Even if the old professional ardour of the Sepoy had 
been restored, the occasion was scarcely one on 
which the Government could have called for volun- 
teers. The formation of volunteer regiments had 
been confined to periods of actual warfare ; and now 
that we required them merely to garrison our acqui- 
sitions in time of peace, the difficulty that confronted 



Pecju. 



RELIEFS FOR PEGU. 4G3 

Lord Canning was one not readily to be overcome. 1858. 
He found at this time tliat of the six general-service 
regiments three were then in Pegu. They had em- 
barked on a specific understanding that they should 
not be called upon to serve there for more than three 
years, and, in the rainy season of 1856, two of the 
three regiments were in their third year of trans- 
marine service. In the early part of the following 
year, therefore, a relief would be necessary ; but not 
one of the other three regiments could be despatched ; 
for they had all returned oidy a year or two before 
from service in the same part of the country. It was 
clear, therefore, that the Bengal Army could not pro- 
vide the means of despatching the required reliefs by 
water transport to Pegu. 

So a question arose as to whether the relieving 
regiments might not, according to their bond, be 
marched to the Burmese coast. It was a circuitous 
and toilsome journey, but it had been done, under 
pressure of like difficulty, thirty years before, and 
might yet be done again. But although the improve- 
ment of the communications between the Hooghly 
and the Irrawaddy was then being urged forward by 
the Government, there was still a break on the line 
from Chittagong to Akyab, of which our Engineers 
could not give a sufficiently encouraging account to 
satisfy the Governor-General that the relieving regi- 
ments could be sent by land in the ensuing cold 
season. ^' A part of the road," said Lord Canning, 
^' could* not be made passable for wheels by that time 
without the addition of eight thousand labourers to 
those already employed. If the use of wheeled car- 
riages were abandoned, there would still remain en- 
camping ground to be cleared on many parts of it ; 
the jungle, which is already choking the tract, to be 



4G4 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1S56. removed ; preparation to be made for halting tlip. 
men on tlie march ; wells to be dug, or water to be 
stored, where none has yet been found ; and stations 
and storehouses provided. Simple operations enough 
in themselves, but which in this case would have to 
be begun and completed, on two hundred miles of 
road, betAveen the beginning of December, before 
which no work on that coast can be attempted, and 
February, when the troops must begin to pass over 
the ground, the supply of labour, as well as its 
quality, being very little trustworthy." " Obstacles 
of this kind," continued the Governor-General, " have 
been overcome again and again by the Sepoys of 
Bengal in their marches, whenever it has been neces- 
sary to do so ; but I am of opinion that it will be 
better in the present instance to seek some other solu- 
tion of the difficulty. And I believe that the one 
most available is a recourse to the Madras Army." 
Demar.ds oii And why not ? The Madras, or, as it was once 
ArJ^^^'^^ called, the Coast Army, was enlisted for general 
service. Posted in the Southern Peninsula, and to a 
great extent along the sea-board, it was as readily 
available for service on the other side of the Bay as 
the Army in Lower Bengal. If the duty were un- 
palatable, it could not, when diffused over fifty 
regiments, press very heavily upon any individual 
soldier. Besides, service of this kind had some com- 
pensations of its own, and was not altogether to be 
regarded as a grievance.* So it was thought that the 

* It must not be supposed, how- when about to embark at Vizaga- 

ever, that tlie Madras Army liad patara, and shot all but one or two, 

always cheerfully accepted this ne- who had contrived to escape on 

<?essity for going upon foreign ser- board the ship which was waiting to 

vice. On several occasions they had receive the regiment. In a former 

broken into mutiny on the eve of chapter I have given some later in- 

embarkaiion. Once, towards the stances, and others might have been 

close of the last century, they had cited. But there are some noble 

risen upon their European officers, examples on record of ai.other kind, 



PROTEST OF THE MADRAS GOVERNMENT. 



4G5 



garrison of Pegu mlglit, for a time at least, be drawn 
from the Madras Army. But ready as the solution 
appeared to be, it was found that here also there was 
some hard, gritty, insoluble matter at the bottom of 
the scheme. The Madras Government, though not 
unwilling to send troops to Pegu, as a temporary 
arrangement, protested against being called upon to 
supply a permanent garrison to that part of our 
dominions. Such an arrano-ement w^ould brino; round 
to every regiment a tour of service beyond the sea 
once in every nine years, instead of once in twelve 
years; it would render service in the Madras Army 
unpopular ; make recruiting difficult among the 
better class of Natives whom it was desired to enlist ; 
and, inasmuch as every regiment lost much of its 
morale on Foreign service, and took two or three 
years to recover what was lost, the efficiency of the 
Madras Army would be permanently deteriorated. 
So Lord Canning turned his thoughts in another 



1856. 



and one adduced by Sir John Mal- 
colm, in the article above quoted, 
deserves to be recorded here, it" only 
as an illustration of the influence for 
good of a trusted commanding of- 
ficer. Speaking of the services of 
the Twenty-second Madras Regi- 
ment, he says : " This fine corps was 
commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel 
James Oram, an officer not more 
distinguished for his personal zeal 
and gallantry than for a thorough 
knowledge of the men under iiis 
command, whose temper he had 
completely preserved, at the same 
time that lie had imparted to them 
the highest perfection in their dress 
and discipline. When he proposed 
to his corps on parade to volunteer 
for Manilla, they only requested 1o 
know whether Colonel Oram would 
go with them? The answer was, 
'He would.' 'Will he stay with 
us F' was the second questiou. The 

2 



reply was in the affirmative; the 
whole corps exclaimed, * To Euro))e ! 
— to Europe !' And the alacrity and 
spirit with which they subsequently 
embarked, showed that they would 
as readily have gone to the shores of 
the Atlantic as to an island of the 
Eastern Ocean. Not a man of the 
corps deserted, from the period they 
volunteered for service until they 
embarked; and such was the con- 
tagion of their enthusiasm, that 
several Sepoys who were missing 
from one of the battalions in garri- 
son at Madras, were found, wlien 
the expedition returned, to have de- 
serted to join the Twenty-second 
under Colonel Oram. We state 
this anecdote," adds Sir John Mal- 
colm, " with a full impression of the 
importance of the lesson it conveys. 
It is through their affections alone 
that such a class of men can well b« 
commanded." 

II 



Enlistment 
Act. 



466 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

185G. direction. Madras troops miglit be sent for tlie 
The General nonce to Pegu, but the permanent defence of that 
outlying province across the Bay must, it appeared 
to him, be provided for by drawing, in some way^ 
upon the Bengal Army. There was then lying, un- 
responded to, among the Records of the Military 
Department, that despatch of the Court of Directors 
in which the Government of India had been uro^ed 
to devise the means of relieving themselves from all 
such em] arrassments by a change in the terms of 
future enlistments. After much inward thought and 
much consultation with others, he determined, there- 
fore, to institute such a radical change in the con- 
stitution of the Bengal Army as four years before 
had been indicated by the Home Government. The 
reform which he contemplated was to have only a 
prospective effect. It was to touch no existing in- 
terests; but to be applied prospectively to all who 
might enlist into the military service of the State. 
Thenceforth every recruit was to engage himself for 
general service. There might be an alteration in 
the form of the oath, or it might simply be left to the 
European officer to explain to every recruit that he 
had been enlisted for general service. Such had 
been the custom with respect to the six general- 
service regiments of the Bengal Army, and it had 
been found to answer every requirement. An ex- 
planatory order might be issued by the Governor- 
General in Council, and then the military autho- 
rities might follow up, in their own way, the blow 
struck at the niceties of the old system. The Go- 
vernor-General argued, with irresistible force, that 
every Government should be master of its own 
Army. He was, however, at that time, fresh from 
England ; and he might be forgiven for not knowing 



THE GENERAL-SERVICE ENLISTMENT ACT. 4G7 

how the Government could best make itself the issa. 
master of such an Army as that with which he was 
then dealing. But he would have had no legitimate 
claim to forgiveness if he had failed to take counsel 
with those among his constitutional advisers who 
had spent all their adult lives in India, and who 
were presumedly familiar with the feelings and opi- 
nions of the people. He did take counsel with them ; 
and they urged him to pursue this course. He who, 
of all the Councillors, best knew the Native character, General Low. 
was then in England ; but the ablest man amongst 
them argued that there was no place like Calcutta Mr. J. P. 
for shipping off a large military force, and that the ^^^^^' 
Bay of Bengal had become an Indian Lake. It does 
not seem that there was any one at Lord Canning's 
elbow to tell him that, whatsoever might be the fa- 
cilities of transport, the Bay of Bengal would still 
be the black water, the salt water, in the thoughts 
of the people from whom our recruits were to be 
drav/n ; still regarded with mysterious awe, and re- 
coiled from with unconquerable aversion. 

So, on the 25th of July, 1856, a general order 
was issued by the Government of India, declaring 
that, thenceforth, they would not accept the service 
of any Native recruit who would not, '* at the time 
of his enlistment, distinctly undertake to serve be- 
yond the sea, whether within the territories of the 
Company or beyond them." In what light Lord 
Canning regarded this important change, with what 
arguments he supported the measures, may be ga- 
thered from his correspondence. " You will see," 
he wrote to the President of the India Board, '' that August 9, 

1 Q r p 

a General Order has been published putting an end 
to the long-established, but most impolitic, embar- 
rassing, and senseless practice of enlisting the Native 

2 H 2 



468 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. Army of Bengal for limited service only ; the sole 
exceptions being six regiments of Native Infantry, 
which are recruited on the condition of serving any- 
where, and the Artillery. It is marvellous that this 
should have continued so long, and that the Govern- 
ment of India should have tolerated, again and again, 
having to beg for volunteers, when other Govern- 
ments, including those of Madras and Bombay, would 
have ordered their soldiers on their duty. It is the 
more surprising, because no one can allege any rea- 
son for conceding this unreasonable immunity to the 
Bengal Sepoy. The difficulties of Caste furnish none 
whatever, for the Bombay Army is recruited in great 
part from the same classes and districts as that of 
Bengal ; and even in the latter the best Brahmin in 
the ranks does not scruple to set aside his prejudices, 
whenever it suits him to do so. There seems to 
have been a dim apprehension that there might be 
risk in meddling with the fundamental conditions 
upon which the bargain between the Army and the 
Government has hitherto rested, and there are some 
few alarmists on the present occasion, but I have seen 
no reason to fear that the order will cause any bad 
feeling in the Bengal Army. As it touches no exist- 
ing rights, it could only do so by exciting apprehen- 
sions that something more remains behind ; and, pro- 
bably, this may prove to be the case, for whenever I 
can propose a reduction in the numbers of the Bengal 
Regiments, I shall endeavour to do so upon terms 
that will give a preference of remaining in the ranks 
to such men as may be willing to accept general 
service. But this is no part of, and is not necessarily 
connected with the present change ; moreover, as yet 
Novembers, it is only in my own breast." And again, a few 
months later, he wrote, with still greater confidence : 



1856, 



THE GENERAL-SERVICE ENLISTMENT ACT. 409 

'' Tliere is no fear of feelings of Caste being excited 185G. 
by the new enlistment regulations in the Bengal 
Army. No one will come under it otherwise than 
voluntarily ; and the fact that a vast number of the 
recruits who join the Bombay regiments come from 
the same country, and are of the same caste, and 
in every respect of the same condition with the bulk 
of the Army in Bengal, proves that they do not, on 
first entering the service, hold very closely to Caste 
privileges. You are aware that the Bombay Army 
is enlisted for general service without exception. The 
only apprehension I have ever had (and that has 
vanished) is, that the Sepoys already enlisted on the 
old terms might suspect that it was a first step to- 
wards breaking faith with them, and that on the first 
necessity they might be compelled to cross the sea. 
But there has been no sign of any such false alarm 
on their part." 

No signs truly apparent at Government House; 
but many and great in the Native villages, and much 
talk in the Lines and Bazaars. It was hardly right 
even to say that there was no interference with exist- 
ing interests. For the interest of the Sepoy in the 
Bengal Army was an hereditary interest. If the Bri- 
tish Government did not at once assume the right 
to send him across the sea, it seemed certain that his 
sons would be sent. There was an end, indeed, of 
the exclusive privileges which the Bengal Sepoy had 
so long enjoyed ; the service never could be hereafter 
what it had been of old ; and all the old pride, there- 
fore, with which the veteran had thought of his boys 
succeeding him was now suddenly extinguished. Be- 
sides, the efi'ect, he said, would be, that high-caste 
men would shrink from entering the service, and 
that, therefore, the vacant places of his brethren 



470 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856. would be filled by men with whom he could have no 
feeling of comradeship. And this was no imaginary 
fear. No sooner had the order made its way through 
the Provinces, than it became patent to all engaged 
in the work of enlistment that the same high-caste 
men as had before been readily recruited were no 
longer pressing forward to enter the British service.* 
As it was believed that we had too many Brahmins 
and Rajpoots in the Bengal Army, this in itself 
might have been no great evil. But it was of all 
things the least likely that such an order should pass 
into general circulation without being ignorantly 
misunderstood by some, and designedly misinter- 
preted by others. 
Enlisfmenl of So it was soon said that the Eno;lish cfentlemen 
• were trying to rid themselves of their old high-caste 

Sepoys, and that soon the profession which had been 
followed, with honourable pride, by generation after 
generation of old soldier-families would not be open 
to them. And this belief was greatly strengthened 
by a rumour which went forth about the same time, 
to the effect that Government had determined on 
enlisting thirty thousand more Sikhs. The conquest 
of the Punjab had placed at our disposal the services 
of a warlike race, always eager to wear the uniform 
of a successful ruler, for in their eyes success Avas 
plunder. Less dainty in the choice of their battle- 

* Take, in proof of tins, the fol- Infantry, in this place, said to me 
lowing extract from a letter written last week that he had clearly ascer- 
by Sir Henry Lawrence to Lord tained this fact : Mr. E. A. Keade, 
Canning, on the 1st of May, 1857 : of the Sudder Board, who was for 
" The General Service Enlistment years collector of Goruckpore, had 
Oath is most distasteful, keeps many the General Service Order given to 
out of the service, and frightens the him as a reason last year, when on 
old Sepoys, who imagine that the his tour, by llajpoots, for not enter- 
oaths of the young recruits affect ing the service. The salt water, he 
the whole regiment. One of the told me, was the universal answer." 
best captains of the 13th Native — MS. Correspondence. 



J 



ENLISTMENT OF SIKHS. 471 

fields, and not less brave or robust in battle, they 1S£6. 
were tlie very kind of mercenaries that we wanted to 
give new bone and sinew to the body of our Native 
Army. Whether there were or were not, at this 
time, a tendency to over-work this new and promising 
recruiting-ground, it is certain that the old race of 
Sepoys believed that we were designedly working it 
to their injury and their overthrow. They gave 
ready credence, therefore, to exaggerated rejDorts of 
Sikh enlistments, and, coupling them with the New 
General Service Order, leapt to the conclusion that 
the English had done with the old Bengal Army, 
and were about to substitute for it another that 
would go anywhere and do anything, like coolies 
and pariahs. 

Moreover, there were not wanting those who were Effects of ilie 
eager to persuade the Sepoys of the Bengal Army that UsTment 
this new Act was another insidious attempt to de- Order, 
stroy the Caste of the people, and to make men of all 
creeds do the bidding of the English, by merging all 
into the one faith of the Feringhee. It was another 
link in the great chain of evidence which had been 
artfully employed to convict the British Government 
of the charge of aiming at the compulsory conversion 
of the people. The season was most propitious. The 
coming of Lord Canning had, by some strange pro- 
cess of association which I find it impossible to trace, 
been identified with certain alleged instructions from 
England, emanating from the Queen herself in Coun- 
cil, for the Christianis ation, by fai r^means or by foul, 
of the great mass of the people ; and now one of the 
first acts of his Government was to issue an order 
making it compulsory on the Sepoy to take to the 
transport vessel, to cross the black water, and to 
serve in strange parts of the world, far away, per- 



472 



OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 



ISoG. 



Apprelicn- 
sions and 
ulurins. 



u/ 



haps, from all the emblems and observances of his 
religion, among a people sacrilegious and unclean. 

The native mind was, at this time, in a most sen- 
sitive state, and easily wrought upon by suspicious 
appearances. What these appearances were, has, in 
some measure, been shown in former chapters of this 
narrative. Even the Railway and the Electric Tele- 
graph had been accounted as blows struck at the 
religions of the country. Nor was this purely a 
creation of the Native mind, an unaided conception 
of the Priests or the People; for the missionaries 
themselves had pleaded the recent material progress 
of the English as an argument in favour of the adop- 
tion by the inhabitants of India of one universal 

! religion. " The time appears to have come," they 
said in an Address which was extensively circulated in 
Bengal during the closing years of Lord Dalhousie's 
administration, "when earnest consideration should 
be given to the question, whether or not all men 
should embrace the same system of religion. Rail- 
ways, Steam-vessels, and the Electric Telegraph are 
rapidly uniting all the nations of the earth. The 
more they are brought together, the more certain 
does the conclusion become that all have the same 
wants, the same anxieties, and the same sorrows;" 
and so on, with manifest endeavour to prove that 
European civilisation was the forerunner of an in- 
evitable absorption of all other faiths into the one 

■. faith of the White Ruler. This had gone forth, an 
egregious Christian manifesto, not wanting in funda- 
mental truth, or in certain abstract proprieties of 
argument and diction, to " Educated Natives," es- 
pecially to respectable Mahomedans in Government 
employment, some of the leading Native functionaries 
of Bengal. What might truly be the purport of it, 



f/ 



MISSIONARY MANIFESTOES. 473 

and whence it came, was not very clear at first ; but 1S56. 
ere long it came to be accepted as a direct emanation 
from Government, intended to invite the people to 
apostatise from the religions of their fathers. And 
such was the excitement that Commissioner Tayler, of 
the great Patna division, wherein some disquietudes 
had before arisen, mainly of the Mahomedan type, > 
reported to Lieutenant-Governor Halliday that in-, 
telligent natives, especially the better class of Moslems, 
were " impressed with a full belief that Government 
were immediately about to attempt the forcible con- 
version of its subjects." It was added, that "a corre- 
spondence on this head had for some time been 
going on between native gentlemen in various parts 
of the Lower Provinces;" and Lieutenant-Governor 
Halliday saw so clearly that this was no impalpable 
mare's-nest, no idle scum of an alarmist brain, that 
he forthwith issued a sedative Proclamation ; which 
sedative proclamation was speedily answered anony- 
mously, but beyond doubt by an "intelligent native," 
or conclave of "intelligent natives," clearly showing 
by the inevitable logic of facts that if this notion of 
a war ao^ainst the relioions of India had laid hold of 
the national mind, the Government had by their own 
measures given encouragement to the dangerous be- 
lief. 

Very obstinate, indeed, and hard to be removed, was 
this belief; so hard, that the very efforts made to 
efface it might only fiK more ineffaceably the 
damaging impression on the native mind. For if the 
wondering multitude did not think, there were a 
crafty few ready to teach them, that if Government 
designed, by foul means, to destroy the caste of the 
people and the religions of the country, they would 
not hesitate to make the issuing of a lying proclama- 



4 71 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1S5C. tion a part of tlie process. The conviction tliat it was 
the deliberate design of the British Government, by 
force or fraud, to attain this great object, was growing 
stronger and stronger every month, when Lord Can- 
ning arrived in India, and at once became, all unwit- 
tingly, a special object of suspicion and alarm. The 
lies which attended, perhaps preceded, his advent, 
caused all his movements to be narrowly watched ; 
and it began soon to be bruited abroad that he had 
subscribed largely to missionary societies, and that 
Lady Canning, who w^as known to be in the especial 
confidence of the Queen, was intent on making great 
personal exertions for the conversion of the women 
of the country. 
Lord Canning But there was no truth in all this. The Governor- 
p'ous Socie-^" General had done no more than other Govern ors- 
^^t»' General had done before him. He had sent a dona- 

tio n to the Bi ble Society, a society for the translation 
of the Scriptures into the Oriental languages, and the 
circulation of these new versions among tlie people. 
But the translation of the Scriptures had been carried 
on more than half a century before, in the College of 
Fort William, under the especial patronage of Lord 
Wellesley ; and Lord Wellesley's successor, during 
whose reign the Calcutta Bible Society was esta- 
blished, headed the list with a large subscrij^tion. 
Lord Hastings, Lord William Bentinck, and Sir 
Charles Metcalfe, had all contributed to the funds of 
the society. But Lord Canning had also given a dona- 
tion to the Baptist College at Serampore. What then ? 
It had been established in 1818, under the auspices of 
Lord Hastings, whose name had been published as 
the "First Patron" of the Institution, and it had 
received the support of subsequent Governors-Ge- 
neral wUhout question or comment. Besides these 



LORD CANNING AND THE MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 475 

donations, he had made a contribution to the support 1855. 
of the excellent school of the Free Church Mission, 
under the management of Dr. Duif, as Lord Dal- 
housie had done before him. " I admit," he said, 
" that the Head of the Government in India ought to 
abstain from acts which may have the appearance of 
an exercise of power, authority, solicitation, or per- 
suasion towards inducing natives to change their 
religion. But if it is contended that a school like 
this, thoroughly catholic and liberal, open to students 
of every creed, doing violence to none, and so con- 
ducted as to disarm hostility and jealousy (the num- 
ber of the Hindoo and Mussulman scholars shows 
this), is not to have countenance and support from 
the Governor-General because it is managed by mis- 
sionaries, I join issue on that point. I am not pre- 
pared to act upon that doctrine." 

And what had Lady Canning done? She had 
taken a true womanly interest in the education of 
native female children. She had visited the female 
schools of Calcutta in a quiet, unobtrusive way ; but 
once only in each case, save with a notable exception 
in favour of the Bethune Institution, which had been 
taken by Lord Dalhousie under the special care of the 
Government.* In this Lady Canning had taken some 
observable interest. But as the Managing Committee 
of the school was composed of high-caste Hindoo gen- 
tlemen, there was assuredly no apparent necessity for 
restraining her womanly instincts and shrinking into 
apathy and indolence, as one regardless of the hap- 
piness and the dignity of her sex. Whatsoever may 
have been the zeal for the conversion of the Heathen 
that pervaded Government House, there were no in- 
discreet manifestations of it. There are times, how- 

* Aite, page 1S7. 



476 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

185 G. ever, when no discretion can wliolly arrest the growth 
of dangerous lies. A very little thing, in a season of 
excitement, will invest a colourable falsehood with the 
brightest hues of truth, and carry conviction to the 
dazzled understanding of an ignorant people. The 
sight of Lady Canning's carriage at the gates of the 
Bethune school may have added, therefore, Heaven 
only knows, some fresh tints to the picture of a caste- 
destroying Government, which active-minded emis- 
saries of evil were so eager to hang up in the public 
places of the land. 
Progress of It was not much ; perhaps, indeed, it was simply 
' nothing. But just at that time there was a movement, 
urged on by John Grant and Barnes Peacock, in the 
purest spirit of benevolence, for the rescue of the 
women of India from the degradation in which they 
were sunk. It happened — truly, it happened, for it 
was wholly an accident — that one of the first mea- 
sures, outwardly, of Lord Canning's Government was 
the formal passing of the bill " to remove all legal 
obstacles to the marriage of Hindoo widows," which 
had been introduced, discussed, and virtually carried, 
'during the administration of his predecessor.* And 
this done, there was much said and written about the 
restraints that were to be imposed on Hindoo poly- 
gamy ; and every day the appearance of a Draft Act, 
formidable in the extreme to Brahminism, was looked 
for, with doubt and aversion, by the old orthodox 
Hindoos. For they saw that in this, as in the matter 
of Re-Marriage, some of their more free-thinking 
countrymen, mostly of the younger generation, 
moved by the teachings of the English, or by some 
hope of gain, were beseeching Government to relieve 
the nation from what they called the reproach of Ku- 

* Ante, page 190. 



RESTRICTIONS ON POLYGAMY. 



477 



linisiD. And, at such a time, Orthodoxy, staggering 
under blows given, and shrinking from blows to come, 
looked aghast even at such small manifestations as 
the visits of the wife of the Governor-General to the 
Bethune female school. It was clear that the English, 
with their overpowering love of rule, were about now 
to regulate in India, after their own fashion, the 
relations of the two sexes to each other.* 

Lord Canning found this movement afoot ; he in 
no wise instituted it. He found that Lord Dalhousie, 
after an experience of many years, believed these 
social reforms to be practicable and safe ; he found 
that the ablest member of his Council, who had spent 
all his adult life in India, was with all his heart and 
soul eager for their promotion, and with all the 
activity of his intellect promoting them. As to this 
movement against Hindoo polygamy, which was in- 
tended to prune down the evil, not wholly to eradi- 
cate it, there was something, to his European under- 
standing, grotesque in the notion of a Christian Legis- 
lature recognising certain forms of polygamy, and 
addressing itself only to the abuses of the system, as 
though to Christian eyes it were not altogether an 
abuse. But he could see plainly enough that only by 
admitting such a compromise could the good thing be 
done at all ; and seeing also the necessity of proceed- 
ing warily with such a delicate operation, he was not 
disposed, in the first instance, to do more than to feel 
the pulse of the people. It would be wdse to delay 



185G. 



* Sir Henry Lawrence clearly 
dibcenied the danger of tliis, and in 
an article in the Calcutta Review, 
written in 1856, pointed it out: "Of 
Jute years," he wrote, "the wheels 
of Government have been moving 
very fast. Many native prejudices 
have been shocked. ISIalives are 



now threatened with the abolition of 
polygamy. It would not be diificult 
to twist this into an attack on Hin- 
dooism. At any rate, the faster the 
vessel glides, the more need, of cau- 
tion, of watching the weather, the 
rocks, and the shoals.'* 



478 



OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 



1856. actual legislation until public opinion should have 
been more unmistakably evoked.* 

In the personal action of Lord Canning during 
this year of his novitiate, in the promotion either of 
the religious conversion or the social reformation of 
the people, I can see no traces of intemperate zeal. 
But it is not to be questioned that just at this time 
there was a combination of many untoward circum- 
stances to strengthen the belief, which had been 
growing for some years, that the English Government 
were bent upon bringing, by fair means or by foul, 
all the nations of India under the single yoke of the 
White Man's faith. Nor is it less certain that at such 
a time the order for the enlistment of Native troops 
for general service appeared to their unaided compre- 
hensions, and was designedly declared by others, to be 
a part of the scheme. There were those, indeed, who 



* Lord Canning's opinions are so 
clearly expressed in the following 
passage, that it is right that his 
words should be given : " It will, no 
doubt, be a little staggering to find 
ourselves drawing up a law by which, 
although a horrible abuse of poly- 
gamy will be checked, a very liberal 
amount of it will be sanctioned, and 
which must recognise as justifying it 
reasons which we believe to be no 
justification whatever. It may be 
said that we shall only be enforcing 
Hindoo law, and that we are con- 
stantly doing tliis in many ways 
which abstractedly we should not 
approve. But 1 do not know that 
we have any examples of laws of our 
own making and wording, by which 
anything so contrary to our convic- 
tions of right and wrong as the 
taking of a second wife, for the rea- 
sons allowed by Menu (or at least 
for eight of them out of ten), is de- 
clared lawful. This, however, is a 
matter of appearance and feeling 
rather than of substance. Practically, 



a monstrous horror would be put an 
end to, and we might keep ourselves 
straight even in appearance by mak- 
ing it very clear in the preamble that 
the act is passed at the desire of the 
Hindoos to rescue their own law and 
custom from a great abuse, and that 
in no respect is it proposed to sub- 
stitute English law for the laws of 

that people Upon the whole, 

I come, without hesitation, to the 
conclusion that the movement ought 
to be encouraged to our utmost, and 
that the existence and strength of it 
ought to be made generally known. 
Tiie presentation of the petitions to 
the Legislative Council, and their 
publication, will effect this. How 
soon the introduction of a bill should 
follow, or how much time should be 
given to seeing whether serious op- 
position is evoked, I should like to 
talk over with you some day, as also 
the scope of the bill." — Lord Canning 
to Mr. J. P. Grant, June 20, 1856. 
MS. Correspondence, 



MISSIONARY COLONELS. 479 

saw, or professed to see, in this matter, the very root 18^5. 
of our cherished desire for the conversion of the 
people It was said that we wished to bring them all 
to our own faith in order that we might find them 
willing to do our bidding in all parts of the world, 
that they might shrink from no kind of work by sea 
or by land, and even fight our battles in Europe ; for 
it was plain that England had sad lack of fighting 
men, or she would not have drawn upon India for 
them during the Crimean war. In the art of what is 
called "putting two and two together," there were 
many intelligent natives by no means deficient, and 
deeper and deeper the great suspicion struck root in 
the popular mind. 

There Avas another ugly symptom, too, at this 
time, which greatly, in some particular quarters, 
strengthened this impression of coming danger 
among the Sepoys of the Bengal Army. There were I / 
among the Euro£ean__officers of that army many j "^ 
earnest-minded, zealou^ChristlajQS ; men whose hearts 
were wrung by the sight of the vast mass of heathen- 
dom around them, and who especially deplored the 
darkness which brooded over their companions in 
arms, their children in the service of the State, the 
Sepoys who looked up to and obeyed them. Some, 
in their conscientious prudence, grieved in silence, 
and rendered unto Caesar the homage of a wise for- 
bearance. Others, conscientiously imprudent, be- 
lieved that it was their duty to render unto God the 
just tribute of an apostolic activity. It was the creed 
of these last that all men were alike to them, as havino; 
souls to be saved, and that no external circumstances 
affected their own inalienable right to do their great 
Master's work. If under the pressure of these con- 
victions they had changed the red coat for the black,^ 



480 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

H56. and the sword for the shepherd's crook, they would 
have fairly earned the admiration of all good men. 
But holding fast to the wages of the State, they went 
about with the order-book in one hand and the Biblr 
in the other ; and thus they did a great and grievous 
wrong to the Government they professed to serve. To 
what extent this missionary zeal pervaded our English 
officers, it is not easy, with much precision, to declare. 
But there were some of whose missionary zeal there 
is now no remnant of a doubt — some who confessed, 
nay, openly gloried in their proselytising endeavours. 
O ne offi cer, jvvhojn 185^7 was commandant of a regi- 
ment of Infantry, said vauntingly in that year : ''I 
beg to state that during the last twenty years and 
upwards, I have been in the habit of speaking to 
natives of all classes, Sepoys and others, making no 
distinction, since there is no respect of persons with 
God, on the subject of our religion, in the highways, 
cities, bazaars, and villages — not in the Lines and 
reirimental Bazaars. I have done this from a convic- 
tion that every converted Christian is expected, or 
rather commanded, by the Scriptures to make known 
the glad tidings of salvation to his lost fellow-crea- 
tures. Our Saviour having offered himself up as a 
sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, by which 
alone salvation can be secured. He has directed that 
this salvation should be freely offered to all without 
exception." Again, in another letter, he wrote: "As 
to the question whether I have endeavoured to con- 
vert Sepoys and others to Christianity, I would 
humbly reply that this has been my object, and I con- 
ceive is the aim and end of every Christian who 
speaks the word of God to another — merely that the 
Lord would make him the happy instrument of con- 
verting his neighbour to God, or, in other words, of 



COLONEL WIIELER'S MANIFESTO. 481 

rescuing him from eternal destruction." " On mat- 
ters ccnT*ected with rehgion," he added, *' I feel myself' 
called upon to act in two capacities — ' to render unto 
Caesar (or the Government) the things that are 
Cffisar's, and to render unto God the things that are 
God's.' Temporal matters and spiritual matters are 
thus kept clearly under their respective heads. When 
speaking, therefore, to a native on the subject of 
religion, I am then acting in the capacity of a 
Christian soldier under the authority of my heavenly 
superior; whereas in temporal matters I act as a 
general officer, under the authority and order of my 
earthly superior."* Reading this, one does not know 
whether more to admire the Christian courage of the 
Avriter or to marvel at the strange moral blindness 
which would not suffer him to see that he could not 
serve both God and Mammon ; that ignoring the 
known wishes and instructions of his temporal 
master, he could not do his duty to his spiritual 
Lord ; and that if in such a case the two services 
were antagonistic to each other, it was his part, as a 
Christian, to divest himself of his purchased alle- 
giance to the less worthy Government, and to serve 
the Other and the Higher without hindrance and 
without reproach. He was not bound to continue to 
follow such a calling, but whilst following it he was 
bound to do his duty in that state of life to which 
it had pleased God to call him. 

Whilst all these disturbing influences were at 
W'Ork, and on many accounts most actively in the 
neighbourhood of Calcutta, there came from afar, 
across the North-Western frontier, a current of poli- 
tical agitation, w^hich was met by other streams of 

* Lieuteaant-Colonel Wilder to Government, April 15, 1857.—Frmted 
Paper9. 

2 I 



1856. 



482 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. . 

1856, native origin, turgid also with troublous rumours. 
The Persian Government, in best of times given to 
treachery and trickery, even under the fairest outside 
show of friendship, were not likely in such a con- 
juncture as had arisen at the end of 1856, to let slip 
any available means of damaging an enemy. Holding 
fast to the maxim that " All is fair in war," they en- 
deavoured, not unwisely after their kind, to raise 
manifold excitements on our Northern frontier, and 
somehow to "create a diversion." There might be 
some inflammable materials stre^vn about, to which a 
firebrand skilfully applied, or even a spark dropped 
seemingly haphazard, might produce the desired 
result of combustion. Truly it was worth a trial. In 
spite of Sectarian differences something perhaps might 
be done by an appeal to the common faith of the fol- 
lowers of the Prophet. The King of Delhi, though 
not much as a substantial fact, was a great and 
potential name ; there was some vitality in the tradi- 
tions which were attached to it and the associations 
by which it was surrounded. The Mogul himself was 
a Soonee, and the people of Delhi and its surround- 
ings were mostly Soonees, and there was doubtless a 
difficulty in this, but not one that might not be sur- 
mounted. So Persia sent forth her emissaries noise- 
lessly to the gates of the Imperial City, perhaps with 
no very clear conception of what was to be done, but 
with a general commission to do mischief to the 
English. Mahomedans of all sects might be invited 
to lay aside their doctrinal differences for a while and 
to unite against a common enemy. There might be 
great promises of the restoration of a magnificent 
Mahomedan Empire ; and, as the least result of the 
scattering of such seed, the minds of the people might 
be unsettled, and something might come of it in good 



POLITICAL INQUIETUDES. 483L 

time. A Proclamation was therefore prepared, and in 1855. 
due course it found its way to the w^alls of Delhi, and 
even displayed itself on the Jumma Musjid, or Great 
Mosque. There were stories, too, in circulation to 
the effect that the war on the shores of the Persian 
Gulf was going cruelly against us. It was bruited 
abroad, also, that though tlie English thought that 
they had secured the friendship of Dost Mahomed, 
the Ameer was really the friend and vassal of Persia, 
and that the amity he had outwardly evinced towards 
them was only a pretext for beguiling them to sur- 
render Peshawur to the Afghans. 

It was believed in Upper India that this was to 
be done ; and it was reported also about the same 
time that the English intended to compensate 
themselves for this concession by annexing the 
whole of Rajpootana. This last story was not one 
of merely native acceptance. It had been set forth 
prominently in some of the Anglo-Indian newspapers, 
and unhappily there had been nothing in our past 
treatment of the Native States of India to cause it 
to be disbelieved. In the North-Western regions of 
India disturbing rumours commonly assume a poli- 
tical colour, whilst lower down in Bengal and Behar, 
their complexion is more frequently of a religious 
cast. The rumour of the coming absorption of these 
ancient Hindoo principalities into the great new 
Empire of the British was well contrived, not only 
to excite the anxieties and resentments of the Raj- 
poot races, but to generate further political mistrust 
throughout all the remaining states of the country. 
It was so mischievous a report that, when it reached 
England and obtained further currency in our jour- 
nals, even the Court of Directors of the East India 

2x2. 



484 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1856 Company, the most reticent of all political bodies, 
broke, as I have before said, through their habitual 
reserve, and authoritatively contradicted it. 

Seldom is it that the English themselves discern 
the effects of these disquieting rumours upon the 
minds of the people. In ordinary official language, 
at this time, all was quiet in Upper India. But ever 
and anon some friendly Mahomedan or Hindoo spoke 
of certain significant symptoms of the unrest which 
was not visible to the English eye ;* and vague re- 
ports of some coming danger which no one could 
define, reached our functionaries in the North- 
West; and some at last began to awaken slowly to 
the conviction that there Avere evil influences at 
work to unsettle the national mind. The new year 
dawned, and there was something suggestive in the 
number of the year. In 1757 the English had est^- 
blished their dominion in India by the conquest of 

* Tlie old Afghan chief, Jan should be, 'Prevention better than 
rislian Khan, who had followed our cure,' and that, with enemies at the 
fortunes and received a pension from s^tCj we should take care to keep 
tlie British Government, told Mr. the inmates of the house our friends. 
Greathed, Commissioner at Cawn- He appeared quite relieved to re- 
pore, in February, 1857, that these ceive my assurance that there was 
rumours had produced a very bad no probability of either of the appre- 
effect. A private note from that bended events coming to pass. It 
officer to Mr. Colvin, the Lieule- would hardly have been worth while 
nant-Governor, is worthy of citation to mention this incident, but that 
in this place: "Jan Pishan Khan we so rarely receive any indication 
paid me a visit a few days ago witli of the political gossip of the day 
the special object of communicating among the native community ; and 
his apprehensions on the present we may feel quite sure that Jan 
state of political affairs in India. Fishan was actuated by fears for our 
He brouglit several members of his welfare, and not by hopes of our 
family, evidently to be witnesses of overthrow, when he gave credence 
the interview, and prefaced his ad- to the reports. I am afraid the fre- 
dress with a recitation of tlie fruit- quent reports of annexation in Raj- 
less warnings he had given Sir Wm. pootana have agitated the public 
MacNaghten of the course affairs mind and bred distrust among the 
were taking in Cabul. His fears Rajpoots. It is a pity so many 
for our safety rested on his belief years have elapsed since a Governor- 
that we intended to give up Pesha- General had an opportunity of per- 
wurto Dost Mahomed, and to annex sonally assuring them of their poli- 
Rajpootana. He said our maxim tical safety." 



THE CExXTEXARY ITtOPlIECY. 485 

Bengal. For a hundred years they had now, by the 185G. 
progressive action of continued encroachments, been 
spreading their paramount rule over the whole 
country; and there were prophecies, said to be of 
ancient date, which foretold the downfal of the Eng- 
lish power at the end of this century of supremacy. 
Ever in times of popular excitement are strange pro 
phecies afloat in the social atmosphere. Whether 
they are revivals of old predictions, or new inven- 
tions designed to meet the requirements of the mo- 
ment, it is often difficult even to conjecture.* But 
whether old or new, whether uttered in good faith or 
fraudulently manufactured, they seldom failed to 
make an impression on the credulous minds of the 
people. Coming upon them not as the growth of 
human intelligence, but as the mysterious revelations 
of an unseen power, they excited hopes and aspira- 
tions, perhaps more vital and cogent from their very 
vagueness. The religious element mingled largely 
with the political, and the aliment which nourished 
the fanaticism of believers fed also their ambition 
and their cupidity. In the particular prophecy of 
which men at this time were talking there was at 
least something tangible, for it was a fact that the 
first century of British rule was fast coming to an 
end. This in itself was sufficient to administer 
largely to the superstition and credulity of the people, 
and it was certain, too, that the prediction based 
upon it was not now heard for the first time. Lightly 
heeded, when long years were to intervene before its 

* It is certain, however, that the pointing to the downfal of the Eiij- 

most preposterous claims to auti- lish at this time; in otlier words, 

quitj are sometimes advanced on that our destruction had been pre- 

tlieir belialf. Eor example, it was dieted many hundred years before 

gravely stated in a leading Calcutta we had ever been seen in the 

journal, that a propliecy had been country, or ever heard of by the 

discovered, a thousand years old, people. 



4^o 



OuTBlt£Ak ov I'm M'jrxi^r, 



1856. possible realisation, now that the date of the pre- 
diction had arrived, it took solemn and significani 
shape in the memories of men, and the very excite- 
ment that it engendered helped in time to bring 
about its fulfilment.* 



* Whether the prophecy was of 
Hindoo or Maliomcdau orio-in is still 
a moot question. The following, 
from a memorandum furnished to me 
by Mr. E. A. Reade, throws some 
light on the subject and will be read 
with no little interest : — " I do not 
think I ever met one man in a hun- 
dred that did not give the Mahome- 
dans credit for this prediction. 1 
fully believe that Ihe notion of 
change after a century of tenure was 
general, and I can testify with others 
to have heard of the prediction at 
least a quarter of a century pre- 
viously. But call it a prediction or 
supersitition, the credit of it must, 
I think, be given to the Hindoos. 
Tf we take tlie Hejra calendar, 1757 
A.D. corresponds witii 1171 Hejra; 
1857 A.D. with 1274 Hejra. Whereas 
by the luni-solar vear of the Sunibut, 
1757 A.D. is 1814 Sunibut, and 1857 
A.D. 1914 Sumbut. I remember on 



my remarking to a chowvey Brah- 
min, whose loyalty was conspicuous 
throughout the period (he was after- 
terwards killed in action with the 
rebels), soon after the battle of Oct. 
11, 1857, that the Sumbut 1915 was 
passing away without the fulfilment 
of tlie centenary prophecy, that he 
replied with some anxiety, there was 
vet a remainder of the year, i.e. till 
March 20, 1858 ; and before that 
time, in 1832, the Subadar, a Te- 
waree, of a cavalry regiment, in his 
farewell to a brother of mine leaving 
the service in ihat year, coolly tell- 
ing him that in another twenty-five 
years the Company's Raj would be 
at an end, and the Hinduo Baj re- 
stored. It certainly does not much 
matter, but I think it is the safe 
view to accept the tradition as of 
Hindoo rather than Mahomedan 
origin." 



THE RISING OF THE STORM. 4^7 



risin; 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE NEW RIFLED MUSKET— THE STORY OF THE GREASED CARTRIDGS8— 
DUM-DUM AND BARRACRPORE— EXCITEMENT IN THE NATIVE REGIMENTS 
— EVENTS AT BERHAMPORE— MUTINY OF THE NINETEENTH REGIMENT 
— CONDUCT OF COLONEL MITCHELL. 

The new year dawned upon India witli a fair Jan., 1S57. 
promise of continued tranquillity. But it was only a 
few weeks old when tlie storm began to arise. It is The storm 
in tlie cold weatlier that the British officer sees most 
of the Sepoy, and best understands his temper. Com- 
pany drills, and regimental parades, and brigade 
exercises, are continually bringing him face to face 
with his men, and he roams about Cantonments as he 
cannot roam in the midst of the summer heats and 
autumnal deluges. But this winter of 1856-57 had 
nearly passed away, and he had seen no indications 
of anything to disturb his settled faith in the fidelity 
of the native soldier. There was outward serenity i 
everywhere, and apparent cheerfulness and content, 
when suddenly a cloud arose in an unexpected quar- 
ter; and a tremendous danger, dimly seen at first, 
began to expand into gigantic proportions. 

For years the enemies of the English, all who had 
been alarmed by our encroachments, all who had 
suffered by our usurpations, all who had been shorn 



488 THE OUTBREAK OF TUE MUTINY. 

1857. by our intervention of privileges and perquisites 
which they had once enjoyed, and who saw before 
them a still deeper degradation and a more absolute 
ruin, had been seeking just such an opportunity as 
now rose up suddenly before them. They had looked 
for it in one direction ; they had looked for it in an- 
other ; and more than once they thought that they 
had found it. They thought that they had found 
something, of which advantage might be taken to 
persuade the Native soldiery that their Christian 
masters purposed to defile their caste nnd to destroy 
their religion. But the false steps, which we had 
hitherto taken, had not been false enough to serve 
the purposes of those wdio had songht to destroy the 
British Government by means of a general revolt of 
the Native Army. For half a century there had 
been nothing of a sufficiently palpable and compre- 
hensive character to alarm the whole Sepoy Army, 
Mahomedan and Hindoo. But now, suddenly, a 
story of most terrific import found its way into cir- 
culation. It was stated that Government had manu- 
factured cartridg: es, greased with animal fat, for the 
use of the Native Army ; and the statement was not 
a lie. 

The old infantry musket, the venerable Brown 
Bess of the British soldier, had been condemned as 
a relic of barbarism, and it was wisely determined, 
in the Indian as in the English Army, to supersede it 
by the issue of an improved description of fire-arm, 
with grooved bores, after the fashion of a rifle. Asa 
ball from these new rifled muskets reached the enemy 
at a much greater distance than the ammunition of 
the old weapon, the Sepoy rejoiced in the advantage 
which would thus be conferred upon him in battle, 
•End lauded the Government for what he regarded as 



/ 



THE GREASED CARTRIDGES. 489 

a Sign both of tlie wisdom of his rulers and of their 1S67. 
solicitude for his welfare. And when it was learnt 
that depots had been established at three great mili- 
tary stations for the instruction of the Sepoy in the 
use of the new weapon, there was great talk in the 
Lines about the wonderful European musket that 
was to keep all comers at a distance. But, unhappily, 
these rifled barrels could not be loaded without the 
lubrication of the cartridge. And the voice of joy 
and praise was suddenly changed into a wild cry of 
grief and despair when it was bruited abroad that the, 
cartridge, the end of which w^as to be bitten oif by 
the Sepoy, was greased with the fat of the detested 
swine of the Mahomedau, or the venerated cow of the 
Hindoo. 

How the truth first transpired has been often told. Story of the 
Eight miles from Calcutta lies the military station of "^..^j.^^j^cg. 
Dum-Dum. For many years it had been the head- 
quarters of the Bengal Artillery. There all the many 
distinguished oflicers of that distinguished corps had 
learnt the rudiments of their profession, and many 
had spent there the happiest years of their lives. But 
it was suddenly discovered that it was not suited to 
the purpose for which it w^as designed. The head- 
quarters of the Artillery were removed to Meerut. 
The red coat displaced the blue. The barracks and the 
mess-house, and the officers' bungalows, were given 
up to other occupants ; and buildings, which from 
their very birth had held nothing but the appliances 
of ordnance, were degraded into manufactories and 
storehouses of small-arm ammunition. Thus, by a 
mutation of fortune, when the Enfield Rifle began to 
supersede Brown Bess, Dum-Dum became one of 
three Cantonments at which the Government esta- 
blished Schools of Musketry for instruction in the use 



400 THE outereat; of the i^iutiny. 

1857. of the improved rifled weapon. Now, it happened 
that, one day in January, a low-caste Lascar, or 
magazine- man, meeting a high-caste Sepoy in the 
Cantonment, asked him for a drink of water from 
his lotah. The Brahmin at once replied with an 
objection on the score of caste, and was tauntingly 
told that caste was nothino;, that hio;h-caste and low- 
caste would soon be all the same, as cartridges 
smeared with beef-fat and hog's-lard were being made 
for the Sepoys at the depots, and would soon be in 
general use througho at the army.* 

The Brahmin carried this story to his comrades, 
and it was soon known to every Sepoy at the depot. 
A shudder ran through the Lines. Each man to 
whom the story was told caught the great fear from 
his neighbour, and trembled at the thought of the 
pollution that lay before him. The contamination 
was to be brought to his very lips ; it was not merely 
to be touched, it was to be eaten and absorbed into 
his very being. It was so terrible a thing, that, if the 
most malignant enemies of the British Government 
had sat in conclave for years, and brought an excess 
of devilish ingenuity to bear upon the invention of a 
scheme framed with the design of alarming the Sepoy 
mind from one end of India to the other, they could 
not have devised a lie better suited to the purpose. 
But now the English themselves had placed in the 
hands of their enemies, not a fiction, but a fact of 
tremendous significance, to be turned against them as 
a deadly instrument of destruction. It was the very 
thing that had been so long sought, and up to this 
time sought in vain. It required no explanation. It 

* No greased cartridges had been only in the rudiments of tlieir rifle- 
issued at Dum-Dum. TJie Sepoys education, and bad not cume yet to 
in the musketry school there were need the application of the grease. 



SPREAD OF EVIL TIDINGS. 491 

needed no ingenious gloss to make the full force of 1S57. 
the thing itself patent to the multitude. It was not 
a suggestion, an inference, a probability ; but a de- 
monstrative fact, so complete in its naked truth, that 
no exaggeration could have helped it. Like the case 
of the leathern head-dresses, which had convulsed 
Southern India half a century before, it appealed to 
the strongest fcffeg*' bnth of the Mahomedan ?ij»(T 
the Hindoo ; bat though similar in kind, it was h.- 
comparably more offensive in degree ; more insult- 
ing, more appalling, more disgusting. 

We know so little of Native Indian society beyond 
its merest externals, the colour of the people's skins, 
the form of their garments, the outer aspects of their 
houses, that History, whilst it states broad results, 
can often only surmise causes. But there are some 
surmises which have little less than the force of 
gospel. We feel what we cannot see, and have faith 
in what we cannot prove. It is a fact, that there is a 
certain description of news, which travels in India, 
from one station to another, with a rapidity almost 
electric. Before the days of the " lightning post," 
there was sometimes intelligence in the Bazaars of the 
Native dealers and the Lines of the Native soldiers, 
especially if the news imported something disastrous 
to the British, days before it reached, in any official 
shape, the high functionaries of Government.* We 
cannot trace the progress of these evil-tidings. The 
Natives of India have an expressive saying, that " it 
is in the air." It often happened that an uneasy feel- 

* The news of the first outbreak Government House from any official 

and massacre at Caubul, in 1841, quarter ; and the mutiny at Barrack- 

and also of the subsequent destruc- pore was known by the Sepoys of the 

tion of the British Army in the Pass, British force proceeding to Burmah 

reached Calcutta through tlie Ba- before it reached the military and 

zaars of Meerut and Kurnal some political chiefs by special express, 

days before they found their way to See ante, p. 269. 



492 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1857. ing — an impression that something had happened, 
though they " could not discern the shape thereof" — 
pervaded men's minds, in obscure anticipation of the 
news that was travellins; to^vards them in all its tan- 
gible proportions. All along the line of road^ from 
town to town, from village to village, were thousands 
to whom the feet of those who brought the glad tidings 
were beautiful and welcome. The British magistrate, 
returning from his evening ride, was perhaps met on 
the road near the Bazaar by a venerable Native on 
an ambling pony — a Native respectable of aspect, 
wdth white beard and whiter garments, who salaamed 
to the English gentleman as he passed, and went on 
his way freighted with intelligence refreshing to the 
souls of those to whom it was to be communicated, 
to be used with judgment and sent on with despatch. 
This was but one of many costumes worn by the 
messenger of evil. In whatsoever shape he passed, 
there was nothing outwardly to distinguish him. 
Next morning there was a sensation in the Bazaar, 
and a vague excitement in the Sepoys' Lines. But 
when rumours of disaster reached the houses of the 
chief English officers, they were commonly discre- 
dited. Their own letters were silent on the subject. 
It was not likely to be true, they said, as they had 
heard nothing about it. But it was true ; and the 
news had travelled another hundred miles whilst the 
white gentlemen, with bland scepticism, were shaking 
their heads over the lies of the Bazaar. 

It is difficult, in most cases, to surmise the agency 
to whose interested efforts is to be attributed this 
rapid circulation of evil tidings. But when the fact 
of the greased cartridges became known, there were 
two great motive powers, close at hand, to give an 
immediate impulse to the promulgation of the story. 



DISSEMINATORS OF EVIL. 



493 



The political and the religious animosities, excited by 
the recent measures of the English, were lying in 
wait for an opportunity to vent themselves in action. 
It happened at this time, that the enmities w^hich we 
had most recently provoked had their head-quarters 
in Calcutta. It happened, also, that these enmities 
had their root partly in Hindooism, partly in Ma- 
homedanism. There was the great Brahminical In- 
stitution, the Doorma Soobha of Calcutta, whose 
special function it was to preserve Hindooism pure 
and simple in all its ancestral integrity, and, there- 
fore, to resist the invasions and encroachments of the 
English, by which it w^as continually threatened. 
There were bygone injuries to revenge, and there 
were coming dangers to repel. On the other side, 
there was the deposed king-ship of Oude, with all its 
perilous surroundings. Sunk in slothfulness and self- 
indulgence, with little real care for anything beyond 
the enjoyment of the moment, Wajid Ali himself may 
have neither done nor suggested anything, in this 
crisis, to turn to hostile account the fact of the greased 
cartridges. But there were those about him with 
keener eyes, and stronger wills, and more resolute ac- 
tivities, who were not likely to suffer such an oppor- 
tunity to escape. It needed no such special agencies 
to propagate a story, which would have travelled, in 
ordinary course of accidental tale-bearing, to the dif- 
ferent stations in the neighbourhood of the capital. 
But it was expedient in the eyes of our enemies that 
it should at once be invested Avith all its terrors, and 
the desired effect wrought upon the Sepoy's mind, be- 
fore any one could be induced, by timely official ex- 
planation, to believe that the outrage was an accident, 
an oversight, a mistake. So, from the beginning, the 
story went forth that the English, in prosecution of a 



1857. 



i/ 



494 OUTBKEAK OF THE MUTINY. 

* 

1857. long-clierished design, and under instructions from 
the Queen in Council, had greased the Sepoys' car- 
tridges with the fat of pigs and cows, for the express 
purpose of defiling both Mahomedans and Hindoos. 

On the banks of the Hooghly River, sixteen miles 
from Calcutta by land, is the great military sta- 
tion of Barrackpore. It was the head-quarters of 
the Presidency division of the Army. There was 
assembled the largest body of Native troops cantoned 
in that part of India. Tliere, on the green slopes of 
the river, stood, in a Avell- wooded park, the country- 
seat of the Governor-General. Both in its social and 
its military aspects it was the foremost Cantonment of 
Bengal. As the sun declined on the opposite bank, 
burnishing the stream with gold, and throwing into 
dark relief the heavy masses of the native boats, the 
park roads were alive with the equipages of the Eng- 
lish residents. There visitors from Calcutta, escaping 
for a while from the white glare and the dust-laden 
atmosphere of the metropolis, consorted with the 
families of the military officers ; and the neighbouring 
villas of Titaghur sent forth their retired inmates to 
join the throng of " eaters of the evening air." There 
the young bride, for it was a rare place for honey- 
moons, emerging from her seclusion, often looked out 
upon the world for the first time in her new state. 
There many a young ensign, scarcely less hopeful 
and less exultant, wore for the first time the bridal 
garments of his profession, and backed the capering 
Arab that had consumed a large part of his worldly 
wealth. It was a pleasant, a gay, a hospitable sta- 
tion ; and there was not in all India a Cantonment 
so largely known and frequented by the English, 
lliere was scarcely an officer of the Bengal Army to 
whom the name of Barrackpore did not suggest some 



: THE BARRACKPORE BRIGADE. 495 

familiar associations, whilst to numbers of the non- 1S37. 
military classes, whose occupations tied them to the 
capital, it was, for long years, perhaps throughout 
the whole of their money-getting career, the extreme 
point to which their travels extended. 

At Barrackpore, in the early part of 1857, were 
stationed four Native Infantry regiments. There were 
the Second Grenadiers* and the Forty-third, two of 
the " beautiful regiments" which had helped General 
Nott to hold Candahar against all comers, and had 
afterwards gained new laurels in desperate conflict 
with the Mahrattas and Sikhs. There was the Thirty- 
fourth, an ill-omened number, for a few years before 
it had been struck out of the Army List for mutiny,f 
and a new regiment had been raised to fill the dis- 
honourable gap. There also was the Seventieth, which 
had rendered good service in the second Sikh war. 
Three of these regiments had been recently stationed 
in the Punjab, or on its frontier, and the Thirty 
fourth had just come down from Lucknow. This 
last regiment was commanded by Colonel S. G. 
Wheler, who had but recently been posted to it 
from another corps ; the Forty-third was under 
Colonel J. D. Kennedy, whose tenure of command 
had also been brief; whilst the Seventieth and the 
wing of the Second were commanded by officers who 
had graduated in those regiments, and were there- 
fore well known to the men. The station was com- 
manded by Brigadier Charles Grant ; and the General 
of Division was that brave soldier and distinguished 
officer, John Hearsey, of whose services I have al- 
ready spoken in a previous chapter of this work. J 

* A wing of this regiment was at J See Book IT. — Account of the 
Ran egunge. Mutiny in the Punjab. 

Ante, p. 298. 



49 G THE OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1857. On the 28th of January, Hearsey reported officially 

to the iVdjutant- General's office that an ill-feeling was 
^'said to subsist in the minds of the Sepoys of the 
regiments at Barrackpore." " A report," he said, 
" has been spread by some designing persons, most 
likely Brahmins, or agents of the religious Hindoo 
party in Calcutta (I believe it is called the ^ Dharma 
Sobha'), that the Sepoys are to be forced to embrace 
the Christian faith." " Perhaps," he added, " those 
Hindoos who are opposed to the marriage of widows 
in Calcutta* are using underhand means to thwart 
Government in abolishing the restraints lately re- 
moved by law for the marriage of widows, and con- 
ceive if they can make a party of the ignorant classes 
in the ranks of the army believe their religion or 
religious prejudices are eventually to be abolished by 
force, and by force they are all to be made Christians, 
and thus, by shaking their faith in Government, lose 
the confidence of their officers by inducing Sepoys to 
commit offences (such as incendiarism), so difficult to 
put a stop to or prove, they will gain their object." 
The story of the greased cartridges was by this time 
in every mouth. There was not a Sepoy in the Lines 
of Barrackpore who was not familiar with it. There 
were few who did not believe that it was a deliberate 
plot, on the part of the English, designed to break 
down the caste of the Native soldier. And many 
were persuaded that there was an ultimate design to 
bring all men, along a common road of pollution, to 
the unclean faith of the beef-devouring, swine-eating 
Fcringhee, who had conquered their country and now 
yearned to extirpate the creeds of their countrymen. 
There was a time, perhaps, Avhen the Sepoy would 

* The General, doubtless, meant who are oi)j)Oscd to the marriage of 
to say, "those Hindoos in Calcutta widows." 



EXCITEMENT AT BAIiraCRPORE. 407 

have carried the story to his commanding officer, and 1S57. 
sought an explanation of it. Such confidences had 
ceased to be a part of tlie rehitions between them. 
But it was not the less manifest that the Native 
soldiery at Barrackpore were boiling over with bitter 
discontent. They had accepted not only the fact as 
it came to them from Dum-Dum, but the accom- 
panying lies which had been launched from Calcutta ; 
and they soon began, after the lashion of their kind, 
to make a public display of their wrath. It is their 
wont in such cases to symbolise the irmer fires that 
are consuming them by acts of material incendiarism. 
No sooner is the Sepoy troubled in his mind, and 
bent on resistance, than he begins covertly in the 
night to set fire to some of the public buildings of 
the place. Whether this is an ebullition of childish 
anger — an outburst of irrepressible feeling in men 
not yet ripe for more reasonable action ; or whether 
it be intended as a signal, whether the fires are beacon- 
fires lit up to warn others to be stirring, they are 
seldom or never wanting in such conjunctures as this. 
A few days after the story of the greased cartridges 
first transpired at Dum-Dum, the telegraph station 
at Barrackpore was burnt down. Then, night after 
nio-ht, followed other fires. Burnino; arrows were shot 
into the thatched roofs of officers' bungalows. It was 
a trick learnt from the Sonthals, among whom the 
Second Grenadiers had served ; and the fact that 
similar fires, brought about by the same means, were 
breaking out at Raneegunge, more than a hundred 
miles away, stamped their complicity in the crime, 
for one wing of the regiment was stationed there. 
These incendiary fires were soon followed by noc- 
turnal meetings. Men met each other with muffled 
faces, and discussed, in excited language, the intole- 

2 K 



at Berhani 
pove 



498 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1857. rable outrage whicli the British Government had 
deliberately committed upon them. It is probable 
that they were not all Sepoys who attended these 
nightly musters. It is probable that they were not 
all Sepoys who signed the letters that went forth 
from the post-offices of Calcutta and Barrackpore, 
calling upon the soldiery at all the principal stations of 
the Bengal Army to resist the sacrilegious encroach- 
ments of the English. All that is clearly known is, 
that the meetings were held, that the letters were 
sent ; and Cantonment after Cantonment fermented 
with the story of the greased cartridges. 
The mutiny A hundred miles from Barrackpore, to the north- 
ward, on the banks of the river, lies the military station 
of Berhampore. It was one well suited, by its position, 
for the development of the desired results. For only 
a few miles beyond it lay the city of Moorshedabad, 
the home of the Newab Nazim of Bengal, the repre- 
sentative of the line of Soubahdars, who, under the 
Imperial Government, had once ruled that great 
province. It was known that the Newab, who, 
though stripped of his ancestral power, lived in a 
palace with great wealth and titular dignity and the 
surroundings of a Court, was rankling under a sense 
of indignities put upon him by the British Govern- 
ment, and that there Avere thousands in the city who 
would have risen at the signal of one who, weak him- 
self, was yet strong in the prestige of a great name. 
At Berhampore, there were no European troops ; 
there were none anvwhere near to it. A reo;iment 
of Native Infantry, the Nineteenth, was stationed 
there, with a corps of Irregular Cavalry, and a battery 
of post guns manned by native gunners. It was not 
difficult to see that if these troops were to rise agaiuv^t 
their English officers, and the people of Moorshedabad 



THE THIRTY-FOURTH AT BERHAMPORE. 499 

were to fraternise with them, in the name of the 1,857;. 
Newab, all Bengal would soon be in a blaze. No 
thoughts of this kind disturbed the minds of our 
people, but the truth was very patent to the under- 
standings of their enemies. 

It happened, too, unfortunately at this time, that 
the routine-action of the British Government favoured 
the growth of the evil ; for w^hen the excitement was 
great at Barrackpore, detachments went forth on 
duty from the most disaffected regiments of all to 
spread by personal intercourse the great contagion of 
alarm. Firstly, a guard from the Thirty -fourth w^ent 
upwards in charge of stud-horses ; and then, a week 
later, another detachment from this regiment marched 
in the same direction with a party of European con- 
valescents. At Berhampore they were to be relieved 
by men from the regiment there, and then to return 
to their own head-quarters ; so that they had an 
opportunity of communicatmg all that was going on 
at Barrackpore to their comrades of the Nineteenth^ 
of learning their sentiments and designs, and carry- 
ing back to their own station, far more clearly and 
unmistakably than could any correspondence by 
letter, tidings of the state of feeling among the troops 
at Berhampore, and the extent to which they were 
prepared to resist the outrage of the greased car- 
tridges. 

When the men of the Thirty-fourth reached Ber- 
hampore, their comrades of the Nineteenth received 
them open-armed and open-mouthed. They were old 
associates, for, not long before, they had been stationed 
together at Lucknow ; and now the Nineteenth asked 
eagerly what strange story was this that they had 
heard from Barrackpore about the greasing of the 
cartridges. It was not then a new story in the Lines 

2 K 2 



500 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1857 of Berhampore, but was already two weeks old.* It 
had been carried as quickly as the post or special 
messenger could carry it from the one station to the 
other, and it was soon afterwards in every man's 
mouth. But it had wrought no immediate effect 
upon the outer bearing of the Sepoys of the Nine- 
teenth. The story was carried to the commanding 
officer, who gave an assuring reply, saying that, if 
there were any doubts in their minds, the men might 
see for themselves the grease applied to their car- 
tridges ; and so for a while the excitement was allayed. 
But when the men of the Thirty-fourth went up from 
Barrackpore and spoke of the feeling there — spoke of 
the general belief among the Sepoys at the Presidency 
that the Government deliberately designed to defile 
them, and of the intended resistance to this foul and 
fraudulent outrage — the Nineteenth listened to them 
as to men speaking with high authority, for they 
came from the very seat of Government, and were 
not likely to err. So they took in the story as it was 
told to them witli a comprehensive faith, and were 
soon in that state of excitement and alarm which is 
so often the prelude of dangerous revolt. 

On the day after the arrival of the detachment 
from Barrackpore, a parade of the Nineteenth was 
Feb. 27. ordered for the following morning. It was an ordi- 
nary parade, "accidental," meaning nothing. But it 
was a parade "with blank ammunition," and a mean- 
ing was found. There were in the morning no ap- 

* The first detachment of the about, tliat Government intend to 

Thirtv-fourih reached Berhampore make the Native Army use cow's fat 

on tlie IStli of February, tlie second and pig's fat witli the ammunition 

on the 25th. Colonel Mitcliell, for their new rifles?" It must have 

writing on February IG, says, that reached Berhampore, therefore, either 

about a fortnic^lit before a Brahmin by tlie post or by Cossid (messen- 

Pav-Havildariiad asked iiim, " What ger) at the very beginning of the 

is tliis story that everybody is talking month ol February. 



EXCITEMENT IX THE NINETEENTH. 501 

parent signs of disaifection, but, before the evening 1857. 
had passed away, Adjutant M 'Andrew carried to the 
quarters of Colonel Mitchell a disquieting report, to 
the eifect that there Avas great excitement in the 
Lines ; that when their percussion-caps had been 
served out to them for the morning's parade, the 
men had refused to take them, and that they had 
given as the ground of their refusal the strong sus- 
picion they entertained that the cartridges had been 
defiled. It was the custom not to distribute the 
cartridges among the men before the morning of 
parade ; but the general supply for the regiment had 
been served out from the magazine, and, before being 
stored away for the night, had been seen by some of 
the Sepoys of the corps. Now, it happened that the 
paper of which the cartridges were made was, to the 
outward eye, of two different kinds, and, as the men 
had heard that fresh supplies of ammunition had 
been received from Calcutta in the course of the 
month, they leapt at once to the conviction that new 
cartridges of the dreaded kind had been purposely 
mixed up with the old, and the panic that had been 
growing upon them culminated in this belief.* 

Upon receipt of this intelligence, Mitchell at once 
started for the Lines, and summoned his native 
officers to meet him in the front of the Quarter- 
Guard. In such a conjuncture, a calm but resolute 
demeanour, a few words of kindly explanation and of 
solemn warning, as from one not speaking for himself 
but for a benignant and a powerful Government, 
might have done much to convince those Native 
officers, and through them the Sepoys of the regi- 

* The fact, however, was, that cutta, whieli consisted mainly of 
there were no cartridges among the powder in barrels, 
stores recently received from Cal- 



502 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1857. ment, that tliey had laid hold of a dangerous delu- 
sion. But Mitchell spoke as one under the excite- 
ment of anger, and he threatened rather than he 
warned. He said that the cartridges had been made 
up, a year before, by the regiment that had preceded 
them in cantonments, that there was no reason for 
their alarm, and that if, after this explanation, they 
should refuse to take their ammunition, the regiment 
would be sent to Burmah or to China, where the 
men would die,* and that the severest punishment 
would overtake every man known to have actively 
resisted the orders of his Government. So the Native 
officers went their wav, with no new confidence de- 
rived from the words that had fallen from their 
Colonel, but, on the other hand, strengthened in all 
their old convictions of imminent danger to their 
caste and their religion. He would not have spoken 
so angrily, they argued, if mischief had not been in- 
tended. They looked upon the irritation he displayed 
as a proof that his sinister designs had been inoppor- 
tunely discovered.! 

Such was the logic of their fears. Colonel Mitchell 
went to his home ; but as he drove thither through 
the darkness of the night, with the Adjutant beside 
him, he felt that there was danger in the air, and that 

■* After reading all the evidence &c. &c. ; for Mitcliell had denied it 
that I can find tlirowinf? lip^ht upon on the 18th of March, saving, "I 
this scene at the Quarter-Guard, I certainly did not make use of the ex- 
am forced upon the conviction that- pressionabove quoted." — Lieutenant- 
Colonel Mitchell did use some such Colonel Mitchell to Assistant-Adju- 
words as these. Lord Canning was, iant-General. Published Papers. 
liowever, under an erroneous im- f " He gave this order so angrily, 
presslon when he wrote in his minute that we were convinced that the 
of May 13, " The inconsiderate cartridges were greased, otherwise 
threat, that if Ihe men did not re- he would not have spoken so." — 
ceive their cartridges he Avould take Petition of the Nalioe Officers of 
them to Burmah or to China, wliere the Nineteenth Regiment. Published 
tiiey would die, which is not denied Papers. 
by Lieutenant -Colonel Mitchell," 



MUTINY OF THE NINETEENTH. 503 

something must be done to meet it. But what could 1*57. 
be done? There were no white troops at Berham- 
pore, and the Nineteenth Regiment composed the 
bulk of the black soldiery. But there were a regi- 
ment of Irregular Cavalry and a detachment of 
Native Artillery, with guns, posted at the station, 
and, as these dwelt apart from the Infantry, they 
might not be tainted by the same disease. Weaker 
in numbers, as compared with the Infantry, they had 
a countervailing strength in their guns and horses. A 
few rounds of grape, and a charge of Cavalry with 
drawn sabres, might destroy a regiment of Foot be- 
yond all further hope of resistance. Mitchell might 
not have thought that things would come to this 
pass ; it was his object to overawe, and, by over- 
awing, to prevent the crisis. But, whatsoever his 
thoughts at that time, he issued his orders that the 
Cavalry and Artillery should be prepared to attend 
the morning parade. 

In India, men retire early to their rest, for they 
seldom outsleep the dawn. It was little j^ast the hoar 
of ten, therefore, when Mitchell, just having betaken 
himself to his couch, heavy with thought of the 
morrow's work, was startled by the sound of a strange 
commotion from the direction of the Lines. There 
w^as a beating of drums, and there were shoutings 
from many voices, and a confused uproar, the mean- 
ing of which it was impossible to misinterpret. 
Plainly the Regiment had risen. Ever since the 
Colonel's interview Avith the Native officers the ex- 
citement had increased. It had transpired that the 
Cavalry and Artillery had been ordered out. Sus- 
picions of foul play then grcAV into assured convic- 
tions, and the Regiment felt, to a man, that the 
i^^reased cartridges were to be forced upon them at the 



504 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1S57. muzzle of our guns. A great panic had taken hold 
of them, and it required but little to rouse them, in 
an impulse of self-preservation, to resist the premedi- 
tated outrage. How the signal was first given is not 
clear ; it seldom is clear in such cases. A very little 
would have done it. There was a common feeling of 
some great danger, approaching through the darkness 
of the night. Some raised a cry of "Fire!"; some, 
again, said that the Cavalry were galloping down 
upon them ; others thought that they heard in the 
distance the clatter of the Artillery gun-wheels. Then 
some one sounded the alarm, and there was a general 
rush to the bells-of-arms. Men seized their muskets, 
took forcible possession of the dreaded ammunition 
stored for the morning parade, and loaded their 
pieces in a bewilderment of uncertainty and fear. 

Mitchell knew that the Regiment had risen, but he 
did not know that it was Terror, rather than Revolt, 
that stirred them ; and so hastily dressing himself, he 
hurried off to bring down upon his men the very 
danger the premature fear of which had generated all 
this excitement in the Lines. Before any report of 
the tumult had reached him from European or from 
Native officers, he had made his way to the quarters 
of the Cavalry Commandant, and ordered him at 
once to have his troops in the saddle. Then like 
orders were given for the Artillery guns, with all 
serviceable ammunition, to be brought down to the 
Infantry Lines. There was a considerable space to 
be traversed, and the extreme darkness of the night 
rendered the service difficult. But, after a while, the 
Nineteenth heard the din of the approaching danger, 
and this time with the fleshly ear ; saw the light of 
gleaming torches which was guiding it on to their 
destruction. But they stood there, not ripe for 



MEASURES OF COLONEL MITCHELL. 505 

action, irresolute, panic-struck, as men waiting their 1857. 
doom. There were many loaded muskets in their 
hands, but not one was fired. 

It was past midnight when Mitchell, having gathered 
his European officers from their beds, came down 
with the guns to the parade-ground, where Alexander 
and his troopers had already arrived. The Infantry, 
in undress, but armed and belted, were drawn up in 
line, vaguely expectant of something to come, but in 
no mood to provoke instant collision. A very little, 
at such a time, would have precipitated it, for the ex- 
citement of fear, in such circumstances, is more to be 
dreaded than the bitterest resentments, and even if 
the European officers had then moved forward in a 
body, the movement would have been exaggerated by 
the darkness into a hostile advance, and the Nine- 
teenth, under an impulse of self-preservation, would 
have fired upon them. What Mitchell did, therefore, 
in the unfortunate conjuncture that had arisen, was 
the best thing that could be done. He loaded the 
guns, closed the Cavalry upon them, and sent the 
Adjutant forward with instructions to have the call 
sounded for an assembly of the Native officers. The 
summons was obeyed. Again the Native officers 
stood before their Colonel, and ao;ain there fell from 
his lips words that sounded in their ears as words of 
anger. What those words were, it is now impossible 
to record with any certainty of their truth. The 
Native officers believed that he said he would blow 
every mutineer from a gun, although he should die 
for it himself. They besought him not to be angry 
and violent, and urged that the men were ignorant 
and suspicious ; that they were impelled only by their 
fears ; that believing the Cavalry and Artillery had 
been brought down to destroy them, they were wild 



o06 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1^157. with excitement and incapable of reasoning, but that 
if the Colonel would send back the troopers and the 
guns, the men of the Regiment Avould soon lay down 
their arms and return to their duty. 

Then a great difficulty arose, which, in the darkness 
and confusion of that February night, might have 
perplexed a calmer brain than Mitchell's. That the 
iNineteenth were rather panic-struck than mutinous, 
was certain. It was nlain, too. that a mistake had 
been committed in bringing down the Cavalry and 
guns to overawe the Regiment. It would have been 
wiser, in the first instance, to have used them only 
for protective purposes, holding them in readiness the 
Avhile to act on the offi^nsive in case of necessity. 
But, as they had been brought down to the Infantry 
Lines, it was difficult to withdraw them, until the 
Nineteenth had given in their submission. The men, 
however, required, as a condition of their submission, 
that which Mitchell naturally desired should be re- 
garded only as a consequence of it. Clinging fast to 
the belief that violence was intended, they would not 
have obeyed the order to lay doAvn their arms ; and 
Mitchell could not be certain that the Native troopers 
and gunners would fall upon their comrades at the 
word of command. There was a dilemma, indeed, 
from which it was difficult, if not impossible, to escape 
with safety and with honour. As men are wont to 
do in such extremities, he caught at a compromise. 
He would withdraw the guns and the Cavalry, he 
said, but he would hold a general parade in the 
morning ; he commanded the station, and could order 
out all branches of the service. But the Native officers 
besought him not to do this, for the SejDoys, in such 
a case, would believe only that the violence intended 
to be done upon them was deferred for a few hours. 



THE COURT OF INQUIRY. ' 50f 

So he consented at last to what they asked ; the 1857. 
Cavahy and the guns were withdrawn, and the ge- 
neral parade for the morning was countermanded. 
Whether the Sepoys of the Nineteenth had shown 
signs of penitence before this concession was made, 
and had or had not begun to lay down their arms, is 
a point of history enveloped in doubt. But it would 
seem that the Native officers told Colonel Mitchell 
that the men were lodging their arms, and that he 
trusted to their honour. The real signal for their 
submission was the retrocession of the torches. When 
the Sepoys saw the lights disappearing from the 
parade-ground, they knew that they were safe. 

On the following morning the Regiment fell in, for 
parade, without a symptom of insubordination. The 
excitement of the hour had expended itself; and they 
looked back upon their conduct with regret, and 
looked forward to its consequences with alarm. 
Though moved by nothing worse than idle fear, 
they had rebelled against their officers and the State. 
Assured of their contrition, and believing in their 
fidelity, the former might perhaps have forgiven 
them ; but it was not probable that the State would 
forgive. A Court of Inquiry was assembled, and 
during many days the evidence of European and 
Native officers was taken respecting the circumstances 
and causes of the outbreak ; but the men, though 
clearly demonstrating their apprehensions by sleeping 
round the bells-of-arms, continued to discharge their 
duties without any new ebullitions ; and there was 
no appearance of any hostile combinations, by which 
the mutiny of a regiment might have been converted 
into the rebellion of a province. Under the guid- 
ance of Colonel George Macgregor, the Newab Nazim 
of Bengal threw the weight of his influence into the 



508 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

^857. scales on the side of order and peace ; and whatso- 
ever might have been stirring in the hearts of the 
Mussulman population of Moorshedabad, in the ab- 
sence of any signal from their chief, they remained 
or.twardly quiescent 



XCTIOX OF GOVEEXMEiNT. 509 



CHAPTER V. 

CAUSES OF DELIYED ACTIOX— THE GOVERNMENT AND THE DEPARTMENTS — 
INVESTIGATION OF THE CARTRIDGE QUESTION — PROGRESS OP DISAFFEC- 
TION AT BARRACKVORE — THE STORY OF MUNGUL PANDY — MUTINY OF THE 
THIRTY-FOURTH— DISBANDMENT OF THE NINETEENTH. 

In all countries, and under all forms of govern- 
ment, the dangers which threaten the State, starting 
in the darkness, make headway towards success 
before they are clearly discerned by the rulers of the 
land. Often so much of time and space is gained, 
that the slow and complex action of authority can- 
not overtake the mischief and intercept its further 
progress. The peculiarities of our Anglo-Indian 
Empire converted a probability into a certainty. 
Difterences of race, differences of language, differ- 
ences of religion, differences of customs, all indeed 
that could make a great antagonism of sympathies 
and of interests, severed the rulers and the ruled as 
with a veil of ignorance and obscurity. We could 
not see or hear with our own senses what was going 
on, and there was seldom any one to tell us. When 
by some accident the truth at last transpired, gene- 
rally in some of the lower strata of the official soil, 
much tmie was lost before it could make its way 



510 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

^^5^'- upwards to the outer surface of that authority 
whence action, which could no longer be preventive, 
emanated in some shape of attempted suppression. 
The great safeguard of sedition was to be found in 
the slow processes of departmental correspondence 
necessitated by a system of excessive centralisation. 
When prompt and effectual action was demanded, 
Routine called for pens and paper. A letter was 
written where a blow ought to have been struck , 
and the letter went, not to one who could act, but 
Avas passed on to another stage of helplessness, and 
then on to another, through all gradations, from the 
subaltern's bungaloAV to the Government House. 

The direction of the military affairs of our Indian 
Empire was supposed to be coniided to the Com- 
mander-in-Chief But there was a general power of 
control in the Governor-General that made the trust 
little more than nominal. So little were the limits 
of authority prescribed by law, or even by usage, 
that, it has already been observed, there was often 
a conflict between the Civil and the Military Chiefs, 
which in time ripened into a public scandal, or 
subsided into a courteous compromise, according 
to the particular temper of the litigants. Sensible 
of his power, the Governor-General was naturally 
anxious to leave all purely military matters in the 
hands of the Commander-in-Chief; but in India it 
was hard to say what were " purely military " 
matters, when once the question emerged out of the 
circle of administrative detail. As harmonious action 
was constitutionally promoted by the bestowal upon 
the Commander-in-Chief of a seat in Council, there 
would have been little practical inconvenience in the 
division of authority if the Civil and the Military 
Chiefs had always been in the same place. But it 
often happened that the Governor- General, with his 



THE DEPARTMENTS. 511 

official machinery of the Military Secretary's office, 1857. 
was at one end of the country, and the Commander- 
in-Chief, with the Adjutant-General of the Army, at 
the other. And so it happened in the early part of 
1857. Lord Canning was at Calcutta. General Anson 
was officially in the Upper Provinces ; personally he 
was somewhere in Lower Bengal.* The Adjutant- 
General was at Meerut. The Adjutant -General's 
office was in Calcutta. The Inspector-General of 
Ordnance was in Fort William. All these autho- 
rities had something to do with the business of the 
greased cartridges, and it was a necessity that out of 
a system which combined a dispersed agency with a 
centralised authority, there should have arisen some 
injurious delay. 

But the delay, thus doubly inevitable, arose rather 
in this instance from the multiplicity of official 
agencies, than from the distance at which they were 
removed from each other. On the 22nd of January, 
Lieutenant Wright, who commanded the detachment 
of the Seventieth Sepoys at Dum-Dum, reported to 
the commanding officer of the musketry depot the 
story of the greased cartridges, and the excitement it 
had produced. Major Bontein, on the folloAving day, 
reported it to the commanding officer at Dum-Dum, 
who forthwith passed it on to the General command- 
ing the Presidency division at Barrackpore. On the 
same day, General Hearsey forwarded the correspond- 
ence to the Deputy- Adjutant-General, who remained 
in charge of the office at Calcutta in the absence of 
his chief. But though thus acting in accordance 
with military regulations, he took the precaution to 

* Just at this time General Anson Sepoys were in the first throes of 

was coming down to Calcutta to their discontent ; but it does not 

superintend the embarkation of his appear that the subject of the greased 

wife for England. He must have cartridges then attracted his atteu- 

been actually iu Calcutta when the tion. 



512 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1S57. add that he forwarded the correspondence " for im- 
mediate submission to the Government of India, 
through its Military Secretary," and suggested that 
the Sepoys at the Rifle depot should be permitted to 
grease their own cartridges. General Hearsey's letter 
must have reached the Adjutant-General's office on 
the 24th of January ; perhaps not till after office 
hours. The following day Avas the Sabbath. The 
letter of " immediate transmission" ^vas dated, there- 
fore, on the 26th.* On the following day, the Go- 
vernment of India, through its Military Secretary, 
addressed a letter to the Adjutant-General's office 
sanctioning Hearsey's suggestion. On the 28th, the 
General received the official sanction, and at once 
directed the concession to be made known to all the 
regiments in Barrackpore. But it was too late. On 
the previous day, a significant question had been put 
by a Native officer on parade, as to whether any 
orders had been received. The reply was necessarily 
in the nes-ative. Had it not been for the interven- 
tion of the Adjutant- General's office. General Hear- 
sey might have received his reply four days before. 
Whilst we w^ere corresponding, our enemies were act- 
ing ; and so the lie went ahead of us apace. 

Onward and onward it went, making its way 
throughout Upper India with significant embellish- 
ments, aided by the enemies of the British Govern- 
ment, whilst that Government looked at the matter in 
its naked reality, divested of all the outer crust of lies 
which it had thus acquired. Confident of their own 
good intentions, the English chiefs saw only an acci- 
dent, an oversight, to be easily rectified and explained. 
There did not seem to be anything dangerously irre- 

* It is riglit that tliis should be tlie year sliould be consulted, that 
borne in mind. In all cases of al- account may be taken of a dia non. 
legrd (>ffici;il dfla\s tlio almauack of 



COLONEL BIRCH. 513 

parable in it. But it was, doubtless, right that they 1^5' 
should probe the matter to its very depths, and do 
all that could be done to allay the inquietude in the 
Sepoy's rnind. It was hardly to be expected that the 
Governor- General, who at that time had been less 
than a year in India, should see at once all the diffi- 
culties of the position. But he had men of large ex- 
perience at his elbow ; and it was wise to confide in 
them. In such an emergency as had then arisen, the 
Military Secretary to the Government of India was 
the functionary whose especial duty it was to inform 
and advise the Governor-General. That office was 
represented by Colonel Richard Birch, an officer of 
the Company's Army, who had served for many years 
at the head of the Judge Advocate's department, and 
was greatly esteemed as an able, clear-headed man of 
business, of unstained reputation in private life. Lord 
Dalhousie, no mean judge of character, had selected 
him for this important office, and Lord Canning soon 
recognised the wisdom of the choice. The Military 
Secretary had no independent authority, but in such 
a conjuncture as this much might be done to aid 
and accelerate the movements of Government ; and 
had he then sate down idly and waited the result, or 
had he suffered any time to be lost whilst feebly 
meditating action, a heavy weight of blame would 
have descended upon him, past all hope of removal. 
But when he heard that the detachments at Dum- 
Dum were in a state of excitement, his first thouo:ht 
was to ascertain the truth or the falsehood of the 
alleged cause of alarm ; so he Avent at once to the 
Chief cf the Ordnance Department to learn what 
had been done. 

At that time, the post of Inspector-General of Ord- 
nance was held by Colonel Augustus Abbott, an Ar- 

2l 



514 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1S57. tillery officer of high repute, who had earned a name 
in history as one of the " Illustrious Garrison of Jel- 
lalabad." liis first impression was, that some greased 
cartridges had been issued to the Depot at Dum- 
Dum ; and it was admitted that no inquiries had 
been made into the natural history of the lubricating 
material. But he was relieved from all anxiety on 
this score by a visit from Major Bontein, the In- 
structor, who asked Abbott to show him a greased 
cartridge. The fact was, that though large numbers 
had been manufactured, none had ever been issued to 
the Native troops at Dum-Dum or any other station 
in the Presidency Division.* The discovery, it was 
thought, had been made in time to prevent the dan- 
gerous consequences which might have resulted from 
the oversight. It would be easy to cease altogether 
from the use of the obnoxious fat ; easy to teU the 
Sepoys that they might grease the cartridges after their 
own fashion. The uneasiness, it was believed, would 
soon pass away, under the influence of soothing expla- 
nations. It was plain, however, that what had hap- 
pened at Dum-Dum might happen at the other mili- 
tary stations, where schools of musketry had been esta- 
blished and the new rifles were being brought into use. 
The regiments there would assuredly soon hear the 
alarm-note pealing upwards from Bengal. But thougli 
some time had been lost, the " lightning post" might 
still overtake the letters or messages of the Sepoys 
before they could reach Umballah and Sealkote. 

So Birch, having thus clearly ascertained the real 
fact of the greased cartridges, went at once to the 
Governor-General, and asked his permission to take 

* It sliould be stated t]iat miicli tlie amminiilion mamifactured tlicic 

of the laboratory \Aork of tlie Ar- ^ns always sent to the Arsenal and 

senal of Fort William was actually issued thence to the troops, 
cairied on at I>''s>^)umi but that 



ORDERS TO THE RIFLE DEPOTS. 515 

immediate steps to re-assure the minds of the Sepoys 1857. 
at all the Musketry Depots. The permission was January 27 
granted, and orders were forthwith sent to Dum- 
Dum ; whilst the Electric Telegraph was set at work 
to instruct the Adjutant-General of the Army, at 
Mcerut, to issue all cartridges free from grease, and 
to allow the Sepoys to apply with their own hands 
whatever suitable mixture they might prefer. For, 
at Meerut, a large manufacture of greased cartridges 
was going on, without any fear of the results.* At 
the same time he telegraphed to the commanding 
officers of the Rifle Depots at Umballah and Sealkote, 
not to use any of the greased cartridges that might 
have been issued for service with the new rifles. It 
Avas recommended, at the same time, by Birch and 
Abbott, that a General Order should be published by 
the Commander-in-Chief, settingforth that no greased 
cartridges would be issued to the Sepoy troops, but 
that every man would be permitted to lubricate his 
own ammunition with any materials suitable to the 
purpose. But plain as all this seemed to be, and 
apparently unobjectionable, an objection was found 
at Meerut to the course proposed in Calcutta; and 
the Adjutant-General, when he received his message, 
telegraphed back to the Military Secretary that Na- 
tive troops had been using greased cartridges "for 
some years," and the grease had been composed of 
mutton-fat. " Will not," it was asked, " your in- 
structions make the Sepoys suspicious about what 
hitherto they have not hesitated to handle?" Fur- 
ther orders were requested ; and, on the 29th of 
January, a message went from Calcutta to the Head- 

* Materials for 100,000 cartridges, Calcutta Arsenal to Meerut in Oc- 
with implements of manufacture and tober, 1856. These were for the use 
pattern cartridges, were sent from the of the Sixtietli Rifles. 

2l2 



516 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1857. Quarters of the Army, stating that the existing prac- 
tice of greasing cartridges might be continued, if the 
materials were of mutton-fat and wax.* 

Prompt measures having thus been taken to pre- 
vent the issue of greased cartridges prepared in Cal- 
cutta or Meerut to any Native troops — and with such 
success that from first to last no such cartridges ever 
were issued to themf — the authorities, perhaps a 
little perplexed by this sudden explosion in a season 
of all-prevailing quiet, began to inquire how it had 
all happened. Not without some difficulty, for there 
were apparent contradictions in the statements that 
reached them, the whole history of the greased car- 
tridges was at last disentangled. It was this. In 1853, 
the authorities in England sent out to India some 
boxes of greased cartridges. The lubricating mate- 
rial was of different kinds ; but tallow entered largely 
into the composition of it all. It was sent out, not 
for service, but for experiment, in order that the 
effect of the climate upon the cartridges thus greased 
might be ascertained. But it did not wholly escape 
our high military functionaries in India, that these 
pTcased cartrido:es, if care were not taken to exclude 
all obnoxious materials from their composition, could 
not be served out to Native troops without risk of 
serious danger. Colonel Henry Tucker was, at that 
time, Adjutant-General of the Bengal Army, and he 

* See the telef;;rams published in only grease used with the ammuui- 

the papers laid before Parliament, tion of the old two-grooved rifles 

I merely state the fact that such was a mixture of wax and oil ap- 

n\essages were sent. But I have plied to the "patch." 

found it impossible to reconcile the f This was officially declared by 

assertion of the Adjutant-General, Government, and in perfect good 

that cartridges smeared with mutton- faith. I believe, however, that some 

fat had been in use, with the actual greased cartridges were served out 

facts of the case, as given in the fol- to a Goorkha regiment, at their 

lowing pages on the very hij;hest own request, 
authority. I am assured that the 



COLONEL tucker's WARNINGS. 517 

obtained the permission of tlie Commander-in-Chief 15 s 7. 
to sound a note of warning on the subject. There 
was in those days even a greater complication of 
military authority than when Lord Canning presided 
over the Government. There was an institution 
called the Military Board, composed of certain ex- 
officio members, one special salaried member, and a 
Secretary who did the greater part of the work. 
The trite adage that " Boards are Screens" was veri- 
fied in this instance, if in no other, for responsibility 
was effectually obscured. It fell within the range of 
the Board's multifarious functions to direct the ex- 
periments which were to be made with the greased 
cartridges ; so Colonel Tucker, in due official course, 
addressed a letter to the Secretary to the Military 
Board on the subject of these experiments, adding, 
" I am at the same time to communicate the Com- December 
mander-in- Chief's opinion, that, unless it be known 
that the grease employed in these cartridges is not of 
a nature to offend or interfere Avith the prejudices of 
caste, it will be expedient not to issue them for test 
to Native corps, but to European soldiers only to be 
carried in pouch." But it does not seem that this 
warning had any efiect upon the Military Board.* 
The ammunition to be tested was served out to Na- 
tive Guards at Fort William, Cawnpore, and Ran- 

* Colonel Tucker afterwards said Commander-in-Chief to address the 
in a public journal, " I do not pre- Military Board, and for the Military 
sume to say with whom specifically Board to address the Governor-Ge- 
the blame of tliis most culpable neral. In this case, however, the 
nepjlect may rest. Only investiga- correspondence never went further 
tion can settle that point ; but I than the Military Board ; and it was 
conceive that either the Military not until after the mutiny had broken 
Secretary or the officer presiding in out, and Colonel (then Major-Ge- 
chief over the Ordnance Department neral) Tucker had publicly referred 
in Calcutta, is, one or both, the party to his neglected warnings, that the 
implicated.'^ Investigation proves Military Secretary had any know- 
that both officers were blameless, ledge oft he correspondence of ISaii. 
The 1 outine in those days was for the 



518 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1S57. goon, who carried it in their pouches, and handed it 
from man to man every time that the guard was 
relieved. After being thus tested for many months, 
. the cartridges were reported upon by Committees of 
European officers drawn from T^ative Infantry Regi- 
ments, and eventually sent back to England with 
these reports. No objection was ever made by ihe 
Sepoys to the handling of the cartridges, and none 
were ever started by their regimental officers or by 
the Committees. 

The Sixtieth (Queen's) Rifles were at this time 
serving in India, but the weapon which they used 
was that known as the two-grooved rifle ; and the 
ammunition consisted of a cartridge of powder only, 
and, separate from this cartridge, a ball covered with 
a ^' patch" of fine cloth, which was smeared with a 
mixture of wax and oil. When rifle-companies were 
raised in some of the Native regiments, this two- 
grooved rifle was served out to them with the 
ammunition above described, and no kind of objec- 
tion was ever raised to its use.* The grease was 
known to be harmless, and the paper of the car- 
tridge was never suspected. But, in 1856, these two- 
grooved rifles were condemned, and new Enfield rifles 
issued to the Sixtieth, and also to some of the Com- 
pany's European Infantry. The ammunition then, 
in the first instance, supplied to them, consisted of 
the residue of the greased cartridges sent from Eng- 
land for experiment ; and whilst these w^ere being 
used up, others of the same description, in accord- 
ance with orders from England, were being made up 
by the Ordnance Departments at Calcutta, at Dum- 
Dum, and at Meerut. The mixture of wax and oil, 
though it answered the purpose of lubrication at the 

* See orders of 1847, given at p. 655 Addendum, 



MANUFACTUKE OF CARTRIDGES. 519 

time of use, was not applicable to bundled cartridges, "ISo?. 
because its greasing properties soon disappeared. So 
the cartrido'es manufactured for tbe Eniield rifles 
were to be smeared witli a mixture of stearine and 
tallow. The Ordnance Department then indented for 
tallow, without any specification of the nature of the 
animal fat composing it ;* and, although no hog's- 
lard was su]3plied, there is no question that some beef- 
fat was used in the composition of the tallow. This 
was, doubtless, an oversight, for it would have been 
easy to enter into a contract for the supply of sheep 
and goats' fat, to which there would not have been 
the same objections ; but it would seem that the 
Ordnance authorities had before them the fact that 
they were making ammunition, primarily for the use 
of the Sixtieth Rifles, in accordance with instruc- 
tions that had been received from England. 

It was true, then, that cartridges smeared with 
obnoxious o-rease had been in course of manufacture 
both at Fort William and at the Head-Quarters of 
Artillery at ^leerut. It was true that, in October, 
1856, large numbers of balled cartridges had been 
sent up the country by steamer for the use of the 

* It was a part of a contract for p ( F"'* '"lumuiiltloii pur- 

" Petty Stores," to be supplied to ^^^^^^ • ■ '\ poses, 

the Arsenal of Fort William for two Tallow off For greasing compo- 

years, from the 15tli of August, the purest < sition for Minie 

1856, entered into by Gungadhur kind. . . . (, rifle ammunition. 

Banerjea and Co. The article is In subsequent indents tlie article is 

described in the contract as "Grease, sometimes called "Grease,'* and 

Tallow ;" and it was to be supplied sometimes " Tallow "— " Required 

at tlie rate of two annas (or three- for Arsenal purposes." A circular 

pence) a pound. From the Records was issued to the Department, dated 

of the Inspector-General's office, it January 29th, 1857, directing tliat, 

appears that after the contract, when applying tallow to articles 

dated 16th of August, 1856, was which Native soldiers are required 

concluded, Grease and Tallow were to handle, only the tallow of sheep 

indented for separately at various or goats is to be employed, that of 

times. In an indent on the Con- swine or cows being most carefully 

tractor, dated September, 1856, the excluded, 
following entries appear ; 



520 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1S57, Musketry Depots at Umballali and Sealkote.* But it 
was not true that any had been issued to the Sepoy 
regiments ; for the time had not yet come for the 
detachments at the Musketry Depots to use any kind 
of ammunition. These detachments had received the 
Enfield rifle ; but they Avere merely learning its use ; 
learning the construction and the properties of the 
new weapon ; learning to take it to pieces and to put 
it tocrether ao^ain ; learning the mode of takino- sio;ht 

O CD ' o O o 

and aim at difl'erent distances — processes which occu- 
pied many weeks, and delayed the season of target 
practice. Meanwhile, the old two-grooved rifles were 
in full service with the rifle-companies ; and car- 
tridges, as above described, with detached balls 
greased with oil and wax, were in constant use for 
practice-drill.f To these cartridges the Commander- 
in-Chief referred, when he telegraphed to Calcutta 
that greased cartridges had been long in use without 
<^xciting any alarm. It was thought at Head-Quarters 
that if attention were once called to the matter of the 
greased cartridges, every Sepoy who had used the 
. old "patches" would be filled with alarm. 

But whether this surmise were right or whether 
it were wrong, it is certain that the minds of the 
Sepoys, first in one station, then in another, were al- 
ready becoming overwhelmed by the great fear. The 
lie had gone a-head of the truth. It is doubtful 
whether any orders or proclamations could have ar- 



* Tlie numbers were 22,500 for tacliments at the Rifle Depots. The 

tlie TJniballah Depot, and 14,000 for former were wuh their regiments, 

the Sealkote Depot, sent on the 23rd using the old two-grooved muskets ; 

of October to Delhi, via Allahabad, the latter were detached from their 

by steamer. regiments, learning the use of the 

f It may be advantageous to Enfield rifle in the schools of nius- 

caution the non-professional reader ketry at Dum-Dum, Umballali, and 

against confounding the rifle-corn- Sealkote. 
pauies here spoken of with the dc- 



CAUSES OF ALARM. 521 

rested tlie feeling of alarm, wliicli was ruslniig, witli 1857. 
the force of an electric current, from cantonment to 
cantonment, and turning the hearts of the soldiery 
against us. It was plain that a very dangerous de- 
lusion had taken possession of them, and it was right 
that everything reasonable should have been done 
to expel it. But the Sepoys, at a very early stage, 
were past all reasoning. It was not grease, animal 
grease, alone that disturbed them. Grease of an ob- 
noxious kind, for long years, had been applied by 
Native hands to the wheels of gun-carriages and 
waggons, and not even a murmur of discontent had 
been heard. At Calcutta and at Meerut the greased 
cartridges had been made up by Natives, and, at the 
latter place, even Brahmin boys had been employed 
in their manufacture. So it was thou2;ht that the 
objection might be confined to the biting- off of the 
end of the cartridge. It was true that the grease 
was applied to the part farthest from that which 
touched the lips of the soldier ; but in a hot climate 
grease is rapidly absorbed, and there was a not un- 
reasonable apprehension that it would insidiously 
spread itself from one end to the other of the car- 
tridge. So, on the recommendation of Major Bon- 
tein, a change was introduced into the system of 
Rifle drill, by which the process of pinching off by 
the hand was substituted for biting off by the teeth. 
Tliis was right, as far as it went ; but it could not 
go far. The Sepoy was not satisfied. He argued 
that he had been accustomed always to bite ofi* the 
end of tlie cartridge, and that the force of this strong 
habit would often bring it unwittingly to his lips, 
especially in the excitement of active service. There 
are times, doubtless, when both the Hindoo and the 
Mahomedan have an elastic conscience. But there are 



522 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

1S57. seasons also when both r.re obdurate and uny.'eldhi^. 
It might have been easy to persuade the Sepoys that 
the British Government desired to place the matter 
entirely in their own hands, and to leave them to 
grease their cartrido;es and to use them after their 
OAvn fashion ; but too many vague doubts and sus- 
picions had been raised in past times, and too much 
was being poisonously instilled into them in the pre- 
sent, to suffer even a remnant of confidence to cling 
to them in this conjuncture. To beat them back at 
one point was only to make them take up their 
ground more tenaciously at another. 
Barrad'pore, " We have at Barrackpore," wrote General Hearsey 
1857"^^^' in February, " been dwelling upon a mine ready for 
explosion. I have been watching the feeling of the 
Sepoys here for some time. Their minds have been 
misled by some designing scoundrels, who have 
mana2:ed to make them believe that their relio-ious 
prejudices, their caste, is to be interfered with by Go- 
vernment — that they are to be ^forced to become 
Christians.' " But day after day passed, and though 
itw^as manifest that there was an uneasy feeling in all 
the regiments, and especially in the Second and Thirty- 
fourth, there were no overt acts of insubordination. 
Their commanding officers had explained to them 
that Government had no such designs as were im- 
puted to them ; but even when the Sepoys were as- 
sured that no o-reased cartrido;es would ever be issued 
to them, and that they might themselves lubricate 
their ammunition with wax and oil, so deeply rooted 
were the misgivings that had taken possession of their 
minds, that they began to suspect that animal grease 
had been used in the composition of the cartridge- 
paper, and that the English were only abandoning 
one trick to fall back upon another. There was a 



THE CARTRIDGE-PAPER. .523 

glazed surface on the paper, Avhicli gave it a greasy jS57. 
aspect, and favoured the growth of the suspicion ; and 
when it w^as burnt, it flared " with a fizzing noise, 
and smelt as if there was grease in it." So the sus- 
picion soon grew into a certainty, and the fears of the 
Sepoy waxed stronger and stronger every day. 

This was especially apparent in the Second Grena- 
diers ; so a Court of Inquiry was held to investigate 
the matter. The paper was examined in Court, and 
the Sepoys were called upon to state their objections. 
This they did, with an obstinate adherence to their 
belief that grease had been used in its composition. 
When asked how this suspicion could be removed 
from their minds, they answered that they could not 
remove it — that there w^ere no means of removins: it, 
except by substituting another kind of paper. So 
Government resolved to submit the obnoxious paper 
to a chemical test, and the Chemical Examiner re- 
ported, after due investigation, that it had not been 
greased or treated with any greasy or oily matter 
during or since its manufacture ; that by operating 
on a large quantity of paper he had been able to ex- 
tract as much oil as could be discovered by the use of 
a higher power of the microscope, but that the grease 
was no more than might be contracted from the hands 
of the workmen who had packed it.* But there was 
little satisfaction even in this, for so obstinate was 
the conviction that the English designed to pollute 
the Sepoys, that a belief was gaining ground among 
them that the paper was little more than " bladder." 
The stiffness and transparency of it favoured this 
suspicion, and they could not rid themselves of the 
impression that it w^as an animal substance which 

* Dr. M'Namara to the Inspector-General of Ordnance, Feb. 1\, 3857. 
Published napers. 



o24 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

.toj. they were called upon to use. This was a far greater 
difficulty than the other, for it affected not merely 
the Rifle Depots, but the whole Native Army ; and 
there was no possibility of grappling with it except 
by ceasing altogether from musketry drill. If the 
fear had been only a fear of the fat of cows and 
swine, it might have been removed by the substitu- 
tion of one grease for another ; or if the external 
application of any kind of animal grease were ob- 
jected to, oil and wax might be employed in its 
place ; or if the touching of the unclean thing with 
the lips were the grievance, the end of the greased 
cartridge might be pinched off by the hand, and that 
objection removed. But to this fear of the paper 
used in all the cartridges issued to the Army, greased 
or dry, there was practically no antidote that would 
not have been both an admission and a concession, 
very dangerous for Government to make. It re- 
mained only that the English officer should persuade 
the Sepoy that he was wrong. 

There could hardly, in such a crisis, have been a 
better man in command of the Division than General 
Hearsey ; for he was one who steered wisely a middle 
course between the troubled waters of alarm and the 
dead calms of a placid sense of security. He had a 
large-hearted sympathy with the Sepoys in their 
affliction. He understood them thoroughly. He saw 
that they were labouring under a great fear ; and he 
was not one, in such a case, to think that the "black 
fellows" had no right to suspect the designs of their 
wdiite masters. He saw clearly what a tremendous 
significance, in the ej^cs both of Mahomedans and 
Hindoos, there was in this incident of the greased 
cartridges, and he could not wonder at the mingled 
feeling of terror and resentment that it had excited 



HEARSEY'S FIRST ADDRESS. 52 J 

It was a case that in his opinion required kindly 1857. 
treatment and delicate handling ; and he thought that 
much might be done by considerate explanations to 
restore confidence to their minds. So, en the after- 
noon of Monday, the 9th of February, he paraded 
the Brigade, and in a loud, manly voice, using good 
vernacular Hindostanee, addressed the assembled 
regiments. Earnestly and emphatically he explained 
to them that they had laid hold of a foolish and a 
dangerous delusion ; that neither the Government 
which they served, nor the officers w^ho commanded 
them, had ever thought for a moment of interfering 
with their religious usages or depriving them of their 
caste ; and that it was but an idle absurdity to believe 
that they could by any means be forced to be 
Christians. He told them "that the English were 
Christians of the book — Protestants ; that they ad- 
mitted no proselytes but those who, being adults, 
could read and fully understand the precepts laid 
doAvn therein ; that if they came and threw them- 
selves down at our feet, imploring to be made Book 
Christians, it could not be done ; they could not be 
baptised until they had been examined in the truths of 
the book, and proved themselves fully conversant with 
them, and then they must, of their own good will 
and accord, desire to become Christians before they 
could be made so," He then asked them if they un- 
derstood him ; they nodded their assent, and it ap- 
peared both to the English and to the Native officers 
that the Sepoys were well pleased Avith what they had 
heard, and that a heaviness had passed away from 
their minds.* 

But the good effect of this address was but tran- March, 1SC7, 

* General Hearsey to the Secretary to Government, Peb. 11, 1357. 
- Pabliihed papsn. 



526 OUTBREAK OF TUE MUTINY. 

1857. sitory; for when the troops at Barrackpore heard 
what had been done by their comrades of the Nme- 
teenth, there was great excitement among them, great 
anxiety to know the result. It was plain that the 
game had commenced in earnest, and that they might 
soon be called upon to take a part in it. But it 
would be well first to see what move would be made 
by the Government ; what punishment would be in- 
flicted upon the mutinous regiment at Berhampore. 
Days passed, and days grew into weeks, but still the 
Government appeared to be inactive. The Nineteenth 
were quietly performing their duties, as if nothing 
had happened. In the excited imaginations of the 
Sepoys there was something ominous in this quietude. 
They dimly apprehended the truth, and the obscurity 
of their conceptions caused them marvellously to ex- 
aggerate it. They believed that an overwhelming 
European force, with Cavalry and Artillery, would 
come suddenly upon them and destroy them.* 

Their fears were exaggerated ; but they were not 
wholly baseless. When the tidings of the mutiny at 
Berhampore reached Calcutta, the Governor-General 
saw at once that a great danger had been providen- 
tially escaped ; but with the sense of present relief 
came also a solemn sense of the magnitude of the 
crisis. The little cloud was growing larger — growing 
darker. Here was an act of overt mutiny, and from 
the very cause of all the perilous excitement at Bar- 
rackpore. The time had now come for the Govern- 

* Take in illustration the follow- Howrah— that they had arrived in 

ing from the Barrackpore corre- two ships, and were to come up here 

spondence of the day: "The Drill during the Hoolee (festival) — that 

Naick of my regiment came to me the men had not slept the previous 

two days ago (March 8), and sai<l night in consequence of this re- 

the report in the Lines was, that port." — Major Mattheics to Briya 

tiicre were five thousand Europeans dier Grant. — MS. Corres_pondence, 
assembled by the Government at 



AilRIVAL OF TUE EIGHTY-FOURTH. 527 

ment to do sometliing to assert its authority, and to 1S^7. 
strike terror into the minds of the soldiery. But 
what was to be done ? It was easy to decree the dis- 
bandment of the Nineteenth, but it was not easy to 
accomplish it. There was but one European regiment H.M.'s53rd 
along the Avhole line of country from Calcutta to 
Dinapore, and one other at the lattet place, with a ii. M.'s. I D:: 
large extent of country to protect. Only in the pre- ' 
sence of an overawing European force could a thou- 
sand armed Sepoys be suddenly consigned to penury 
and disgrace, and neither of these regiments could be 
moved to Berhampore without dangerously laying 
bare other parts of the lower provinces. For a while, 
therefore, the stern resolution of Government was 
shrouded from the guilty regiment. But the punish- 
ment was slowly overtaking them, though they knew 
it not. A week after the commission of their offence. 
Colonel Mitchell had received his orders to brino; 
down the Nineteenth to Barrackpore to be disbanded, 
and the spacious passenger- vessel Bentinck was steam- 
ing across the Bay of Bengal, charged with a commis- 
sion to bring back with all possible haste the Eighty- 
fourth British regiment from Rangoon. The Eng- 
lish officers at Barrackpore, even Hearsey himself, 
Ivuew nothing of this, and laughed at the credulity 
of the Sepoys, who believed, on the faith of their 
own news from Calcutta, that this step had been 
taken by the Government. But it soon became appa- 
rent that the Native soldiery were better informed 
than the Division Staff, for on the 20th of March 
there was great rejoicing among the English resi- 
dents in Calcutta and the neighbourhood at the 
thought that the Bentinck had returned, and that suc- 
coui's had arrived. 

In the .mean while a state of sullen quietude ob- 'Marcli, 1S57 



528 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

March. 1S57 tained at Barrackpore. Still clinging to the belief 
that the Government, detected in their first desio-n 
to apply the grease of cows and pigs to the new 
rifle cartridges, had purposely employed those mate- 
rials in the manufacture of the cartridge-paper, the 
Sepoys w^ent about their work under a prevailing sense 
of an impending danger and the aggravation of a 
great wrong.* It is probal)le that their fears were 
stronger than their discontents. They believed that 
their lives, and what w^as dearer to them even than 
their lives, were in peril, and they saw no means of 
escape except by obtaining the mastery over those 
who threatened to brino; down such terrible calamities 
upon them. To what extent this idea of overpower- 
ing the Government had taken possession of the minds 
of the soldiery, and how far it was ever shaped into 
a definite scheme of action by those who were moved 
against us by religious or political animosities, can 
only be dimly conjectured. There was a belief in 
Calcutta that a general rising of the Native troops 
had been fixed for a particular night in March. It 
happened that, at this time, the Maharajah Scindiah, 
the greatest of the remaining Mahratta Piinces, w^as 
on a visit to the English capital. No one then 
charged, no one has since charged him, or his sa- 
gacious minister, Dinkur Rao, with any complicity 
in a plot hostile to the English. They Avere gratified 
by the kind and hospitable reception which had been 
extended to them by the Governor-General and all 
the chief people of the Presidency, and were pleased 
with everything they saw. But it happened that 

* So great was llicir uneasiness, ral court-martial, of which he was 

and so stronj^ were their suspicions, president, was in close eonsultalion 

V!:iat it was believed that Colonel with the Governor-General respect- 

"Wheler, who at that time went ing the forcible or fraudulent coiv 

daily into Calcutta to attend a gene- version of the Sepoys, 



SCLNDUH AT CALCLTTA. 529 

the Malirattii Prince invited all the principal English Marcli, lSi>7 
gentlemen and ladies in Calcutta to a grand enter- 
tainment on the 10th of March. The fete was to 
have been given at the Botanical Gardens on the 
opposite bank of the Hooghly river. It is said, that 
when tlie English were thus occupied with the plea- 
sure of the moment, and the vigilance of the chief 
officers of Government was temporarily diverted, the 
Sepoys, stimulated by the agents of the King of 
Oude, were to have risen as one man, to have seized 
the Fort and all the chief buildings of Calcutta, and 
proclaimed war against the Feringhee. That tlie 
idea of such a rising found entrance into the active 
brains of some enemies of the British cai> hardly be 
doubted ; but there is no proof that it ever took 
practical shape as an organised conspiracy, whicli 
would have had the result I have indicated if 
nothing had occurred to frustrate the plot. But a 
circumstance did occur, which some still regard as a 
special interposition of Providence for the deliver- 
ance of our people. Most unexpectedly, in the dry 
season of the year, there was a heavy storm of rain 
— one of those mighty tropical down-pourings Avhich 
render all out-of-doors recreation wholly an impos- 
sibility. So the great entertainment, which the 
Maharajah of Gwalior was then to have given to 
the English society of Calcutta, was postponed to 
a more auspicious moment, and the evening of 
the 10th of March passed over as quietly as its pre- 
decessors. 

Of this combination of the Native troops at the 
Presidency there were, indeed, no visible signs. Out- 
wardly it appeared that only the Second Grenadiers 
were implicated in treasonable schemes. " The Forty- 

2 M 



530 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

third," wrote Lord Canning to the Commander-in- 
Chief, "have refused to join in a dinner or feast to 
which the Second invited them ; and some of the 
Seventieth have given up a Jemadar of the Second, 
who came into their Lines and tried to persuade the 
men not to bite the cartridges when the time for 
using them should come, and to deter them from 
finishing their huts, saying that there would soon be 
a great stir at Barrackpore, and that their huts would 
be burnt down."* Another sign of this apparent 
isolation of the Second Grenadiers was afforded bv 
an incident that occurred in Calcutta. The Native 
Guards for the Fort and for the public buildings in the 
city were furnished by the regiments at Barrackpore. 
On the evening of the 10th of March a detachment 
of the Second was in the Fort, and a Soubahdar's 
guard from the Thirty-fourth was posted over the 
Calcutta Mint. In the course of the evening, two 
Sepoys from the Second presented themselves at the 
^uard-house and sought out the Soubahdar. He was 
reading an order book by the light of a lam.p when 
the men appeared before him. One of them then re- 
presented that they had come from the Fort ; that the 
Calcutta Militia were to join the Fort- Guards at mid- 
night ; that the Governor-General was going up to 
Barrackpore with all the Artillery from Dum-Dum ; 
and that if the Soubahdar would march his guard 
into the Fort and join their comrades there, they 
might rise successfully against the Government.f 

* March 15, 1S57. — MaS. Corre- ments liad ao;ieed tliat there was no 

spondence. The Second and Eorty- harm in tlieir men dining together, 

third had served togetlier at Can- The rel'iisal of the Forty-third was 

daiiar, and were old friends. Tlie not intelligible to them. 

proj)Osed dinner was to be given f Lord Canning to General Anson, 

•-Inring the Hoolej festival, and the March 12, 1857. — MS. Correspond- 

officers commanding the two regi- ence. 



CO:SSULTATIONS AT CALCUTTA. 531 

This last was rather implied than expressed ; but the March, 1857. 
meaning of the men was sufficiently clear ; so the 
Soubahdar ordered them to be arrested. Next morn- 
ing he sent them prisoners into Fort William ; and, 
a few days afterwards, they were tried by a Native 
Court-martial, found guilty, and sentenced to impri- 
sonment for fourteen years. 

This was a significant incident, but it was one, also, 
which might be turned to some account ; so Hearsey 
determined not to lose the opportunity. His former 
speech to the Barrackpore troops had not accom- 
plished all that was desired ; but it had at least been 
partially successful, and he believed that something 
might now be done by another address to the Brigade. 
So he suo:o;ested to the Governor-General the ex- 
pediency of such a course. On the 14th of March 
they talked the matter over at Government House, 
and Lord Canning assented to the proposal. But 
before the day had worn out, some misgivings assailed 
him, as to whether the General might not be carried 
away, by the strength of his feelings and the fluency 
of his speech, to say a little too much ; so after Hear- 
sey had returned to Barrackpore, Lord Canning sent 
a letter after him, recapitulating the results of the 
morning conversation, " in order to prevent all mis- 
takes." This letter reached Hearsey soon after sun- 
rise on the following morning (it was Sunday), and he 
at once replied to it, promising to take the greatest 
care not to exceed his instructions. On the next day 
the Native officers, who had been warned as members 
of the Court-martial ordered to assemble for the trial 
of the Sepoys of the Second, were to leave Barrack- 
pore for Calcutta ; and the General thought it ad- 
visable not to address the Brigade until after their de- 

2 M 2" 



532 OLTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

MarcL, 1S57. parture.* So the order Avent forth for a general 
parade of the troops at Barrackpore on the morning 
of Tuesday, the 17th of March. 

Ther(i was no little tact requisite, in such a con- 
juncture, for the exact apportionment of the several 
parts of the speech that was to be delivered. The 
main object of it was to warn the troops against de- 
signing persons, who were endeavouring to seduce 
them from their allegiance ; but it was desirable, also, 
to endeavour to pacify and reassure them, for it was 
plain that they were overridden by a great terror, born 
of the belief that the Government had sent for Euro- 
pean troops of all arms with the intent of exterminating 
the Brigade. In order thus to remove the dangerous 
delusion which had taken possession of them, it was 
necessary to speak of the designs of the Government 
towards the mutinous Nineteenth — to show that retri- 
bution was sure to overtake all whose guilt had been 
proved, but that there was no thought of harming 
those who had committed no overt acts of rebellion. 
But it was not easy in such a case to avoid saying 
either too much or too little. " I am afraid," wrote 
Lord Canning to the General, '' that, however brief 
your observations on that regiment (and they should, 
I think, be very brief), you will find it a nice matter 
to steer between excitino^ undue alarm and raising: 
hopes which may be disappointed. But I feel sure 
that you will master the difficulty, and I leave the 
task in your hands with perfect confidence of the re- 

* " I cannot address the Brigade Grenadiers must go from hence be- 

uutil Tuesday morning, as the Native fore I do so. If tliey heard my ad- 

coramissioned officers, wiio are to be dress to the men on parade, it might 

members of the General Court-mar- bias them in tlieir judgment." — Gene- 

tial to be convened at Calcutta for rol Hearsey to Lord Canning, March 

the trial of the Sepoys of the Second 15, 1857. — ^^^S". Correspondence. 



HEARSEI'S SECOND ADDRESS. 533 

suit."* He was thinking mainly of the effect to be March, 1SG7. 
produced upon the minds of the Sepoys of the Nine- 
teenth. He did not wish that the decision of Govern- 
ment should be announced before the time of carrying 
it into effect ; but Hearsey saw plainly that it was 
better for the general pacification of the Brigade that 
the haze through which the intentions of Government 
appeared to the soldiery in such exaggerated dimen- 
sions should be dispersed. " For if the men of this 
Brigade/' he wrote to Lord Canning, " know before- 
hand what is to take place, their minds will be made 
easy, and they will be disabused of the false rumours 
now spread about that it is the intention of the Go- 
vernment to attack and destroy them by European 
troops and Artillery. "f 

It was truly a great thing, at that time, to remove 
from the minds of the Barrackpore regiments the 
great terror that held possession of them ; but the 
Nineteenth had not then commenced its march from 
Berhampore, and it is always a hazardous operation 
to move a regiment, with sentence of disbandment 
proclaimed against it, to the place of execution. These 
considerations pressed heavily on Hearsey 's mind, 
when, on the morning of the 17th of March, he rode 
out to the parade-ground, and saw the Brigade drawn 
up before him. There was much, however, when he 
prepared to address them, of which there could be no 
doubt. Most of all was it necessary to warn them of 
the evil-minded and designing men who were leading 
them astray ; so he began by telling them to beware 
of such men, who were endeavouring to take the 

* Lord Canninfi: to General Hear- f General Hearsey to Lord Can- 
sey, March 14, m7.—3IS. Corre- ning, March 15, 1857.— i/^S. Corn- 
ipondence, sj^oiideme. 



534 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

March 1857. bread from tlie mouths of good Sepoys by making 
them the instruments of their schemes of sedition ; 
then he spoke of the discontent still prevailing among 
them with respect to the cartridge-paper, in which 
they had never ceased to believe that animal fat had 
been used. Then he began to explain to them, and 
wisely, too, as he would explain to children, that the 
glazed appearance of the paper was produced by the 
starch employed in its composition, and that the very 
best paper used by the Princes of the land had the 
same smooth surface and shiny appearance. In 
proof of this, he produced, from a bag of golden 
tissue, a letter he had received, whilst serving in the 
Punjab, from the Maharajah Gholab Sing of Cash- 
mere, and, giving it to the Native officers, told them 
to open it and to show it to their m.en, that they 
might see that it was even more glossy than the 
paper which they suspected. Having done this, he 
asked them if they thought that a Dogra Brahmin or 
Rajpoot, ever zealous in the protection of kine, would 
use paper made as they suspected, and, after further 
illustrations of the absurdity of their suspicions, told 
them, that if they did not then believe him, they 
should go to Serhampore and see the paper made for 
themselves. Then approaching the more dangerous 
subject of the Nineteenth, who had been led into 
open mutiny by a belief in the falsehood of the defiled 
paper, he said that the investigation of their conduct 
had been laid before him as General of the Division, 
and that he had forwarded it to Government, who 
were exceedingly angry, and would, in his opinion, 
order him to disband the reo:iment. That if he re- 
ceived orders to that effect, all the troops within two 
marches of the place — Infantry, Cavalry, and Ar- 
tillery, European and Native — would be assembled 



hearsey's second address. 535 

at Barrackpore to witness tlie disbandment, and that Marcli, 1S57 
" the ceremony of striking the name and number of 
the regiment from the list of the Army would be 
carried out in exactly the same manner as the old 
Thirty- fourth Regiment Avere disbanded at Meerut." 
" I inform, you of this beforehand," added the Ge- 
neral, " because your enemies are trying to make 
you believe that European troops with Cavalry and 
Artillery will be sent here suddenly to attack you ; 
these, and such lies, are fabricated and rumoured 
amongst you to cause trouble. But no European or 
other troops will come to Barrackpore without my 
orders, and I will give you all timely intelligence of 
their coming." Then he told them that nothing had 
been proved against them, and that therefore they 
had nothing to fear ; that all their complaints would 
be listened to by their officers ;. that their caste and 
religious prejudices were safe under his protection, 
and that any one who attempted to interfere with 
them would meet with the severest punishment. 

Having thus concluded, Hearsey deployed the 
Brigade, opened out the ranks to double distance, 
and rode through them, stopping to notice the men 
who wore medals on their breasts, and asking them, 
v/ith kindly interest, for what special services they 
had been rewarded. The regiments were then dis- 
missed, and went quietly to their Lines, pondering all 
that they heard from their General. What they had 
heard was, perhaps, a little more than the Governor- 
General had intended them to hear ; and Lord Can- 
ning, though he much admired and much trusted 
the fine old ofl&cer, had not been wholly free from 
alarm lest Hearsey should be carried away by his 
feelings, and give vent to more than he had authority 
for declaring. But, he added, ''it will be nothing 



536 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

March, 1857. Very iniscliievous even if lie should do so." And he 
was right. Hearsey had intimated that Government 
would disband the Nineteenth, and in this he ex- 
ceeded his instructions. But it is not certain that 
the Governor-General lamented the excess. He re- 
garded the disbandment of the Nineteenth as a ne- 
cessary, but " an odious business ;" and, perhaps, in 
his inmost heart he was not sorry that he had thus 
escaped the painful, and to a generous mind the 
humiliating alternative of concealing from the regi- 
ment the doom in store for it, until he was strong 
enough to execute the sentence.* Indeed, he wrote 
to the Commander-in-Chief, saying, " The Nineteenth 
are inarching down steadily, and will reach Barrack- 
pore on the morning of the 31st. They do not know 
for certain that disbandment is to be their punish- 
ment, and, upon the whole, I think it was better not 
to tell them. But I admit that there were two sides 
to that question." The safer course on one side, and 
the manlier course on the other ; and between these 
two the ruler and the man might well have oscillated. 
That there was danger in the knowledge, is not to be 
doubted. Hearsey had sought, by the partial revela- 
tions that he had made, to soothe the troubled spirit 
of the Barrackpore Brigade ; but it soon became 
doubtful whether the knowledge they had gained 
would not excite within them more dangerous feel- 
ings than those which he had endeavoured to allay. 
*' The regiments at Barrackpore, however, know it," 
wrote Lord Canning, "or, at least, fully expect it, 
and to-day it is confidently said in the Bazaars that 
the Second Grenadiers and the Thirty-fourth intend 
to protect the Nineteenth, and to join them in resist- 

* Compare Book TL, page 297 et seq,; Considerations on the subject of 
disbandment. 



SPREAD OF ALARM. 537 

in^. This is leadino^ to alarms and suo;o;estions on Marcli 1857, 
all sides. Colonel Abbott, of Ishapore, advises the 
putting a gag upon the Native Press for a time. 
Major Bontein recommends bringing the Nineteenth 
to Calcutta instead of Barrackpore, and dealing with 
them under the guns of the Fort, where they will have 
no sympathisers within reach. Even Atkinson sug- 
gests that Dum-Dum would be better than Barrack- 
pore. I am not in any way moved from my first 
intention, and nothing but the opinion of General 
Hearsey, Avho has to execute the orders, that a change 
of plan or place should be made, would dispose me to 
do so. I do not think that he will give any sucli 
opinion, and I hope that he will not." 

No such opinion was given; but it was plain to 
Hearsey, as the month of March wore to a close, that 
the hopes which he had once entertained of the 
speedy subsidence of the alarm which had taken 
possession of the Sepoys were doomed to be disap- 
pointed. For Avhen the troops at Barrackpore knew 
that the Nineteenth were to be disbanded, and that 
an English regiment had been brought across the 
black water to execute the punishment, they be- 
lieved, more hrmly than they had believed at the 
beo;innin2: of the month, that other white re^^iments 
were coming, and that the Government would force 
them to use the obnoxious cartrido-es, or treat them 
like their comrades that were marching down from 
Berhampore to be disgraced. So the great terror 
that Avas driving them into rebellion grew stronger 
and stronger, and as from mouth to mouth passed 
the significant words, " Gora-logue aya" — " the Eu- 
ropeans have come" — their excited imaginations be- 
held vessel after vessel pouring forth its legions of 
English fighting-men, under a foregone design to 



538 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

March, 1 So 7. force them all to apostatise at the pomt of the 
bayonet. 

Mitchell had started with his doomed corps on the 
20th of March, and was expected to reach Barrack- 
pore at the end of the month. The behaviour of the 
men of the Nineteenth, ever since the outburst that 
had irretrievably committed them, had been orderly 
and respectful, and they were marching steadily down 
to the Presidencv, obedient to their En owlish officers. 
On the 30th, they were at Barasut, eight miles from 
Barrackpore, awaiting the orders of Government, 
when news reached Mitchell to the effect that the 
troops at the latter station were in a fever of excite- 
ment, and that on the day before an officer had been 
cut down on parade. 

The story was too true. On the 29th of March — 
it was a Sunday afternoon — there was more than 
common excitement in the Lines of the Thirty -fourth, 
for it was said that the Europeans had arrived. Fifty 
men of the Fifty-third had come by Avater from Cal- 
cutta, and were disembarking at the river-side. The 
apprehensions of the Sepoys exaggerated this arrival, 
and it w^as believed that the cantonment would soon 
be swarming with English soldiers. On one man 
especially this impression had fixed itself so strongly, 
that, inflamed as he was by ha72g, which is to the 
Sepoy what strong drink is to the European soldier, 
he was no longer master of himself. He was a young- 
man, named Mungul Pandy, a man of good cha- 
racter, but of an excitable disposition, and seemingly 
with some religious enthusiasm wrought upon by the 
story of the greased cartridges. He had heard of the 
arrival of the detachment of Europeans, and he be- 
lieved that the dread-^d hour had come; that the 
caste of the Sepoys was about to be destroyed. So, 



THE STORY OF MUNGUL PAXDY. 539 

putting on his accoutrements and seizing liis musket, March, 1857 
he went out from his hut, and, calling upon his com- 
rades to follow him, if they did not wish to bite the 
cartridges and become infidels, he took post in front 
of the Quarter-Guard, and ordered a bugler to sound 
the assembly. The order was not obeyed ; but, with 
an insolent and threatening manner, Mungul Pandy 
continued to stride up and down, and Y>^hen the 
European sergeant-major went out, fired his piece at 
him, and missed. 

All this time the Native ofiicer and men of the 
Thirty-fourth on duty at the Quarter-Guard saAV 
what was o:oino: on, but did not move to arrest the 
drugged fanatic who was so plainly bent upon mis- 
chief. But hastening to the Adjutant's house, a 
Native corporal reported what had occurred, and 
Lieutenant Baugh, without a moment of unnecessary 
delay, buckled on his sword, loaded his pistols, 
mounted his horse, and galloped down to the Quarter- 
Guard. He had just tightened rein, when Mungul 
Pandy, hidden by the station gun in front of the 
Guard, took aim and fired at the Adjutant ; but, 
missing him, wounded his charger, and brought both 
liorse and rider to the ground. Baugh then, dis- 
entangling himself, took one of his pistols from the 
holsters and fired at the Sepoy. The shot did not 
take efi'ect, so he drew his sword and closed with 
the man, who also had drawn his tulwar, and then 
there was a sharp hand-to-hand conflict, in which 
the odds were against the Sepoy, for the sergeant- 
major came up and took part in the afi'ray. But 
Mungul Pandy was a desperate man, and the strokes 
of his tulwar fell heavily upon his assailants; and 
he might, perhaps, have despatched them both, if a 
Mahomedan Sepoy, of the Grenadier Company, named 



540 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

aid), 1S57. Sheikh Pultoo, had not seized the mutineer and 
averted his blows. 

All this passed at the distance of a few yards only 
from the Quarter-Guard of the Thirty-fourth, where 
a Jemadar and twenty men were on duty. The sound 
of the firing had brought many others from the Lines, 
and Sepoys in uniform and out of uniform crowded 
around m a state of tumultuous excitement. But with 
the exception of this Sheikh Pultoo, no man moved 
to assist his officer ; no man moved to arrest the 
criminal. Nor was their guilt only the guilt of 
inaction. Some of the Sepoys of the Guard struck 
the wounded officers on the ground with the butt- 
ends of their muskets, and one fired his piece at 
them ; and when Sheikh Pultoo called upon them to 
arrest the mutineer, they abused him, and said that if 
he did not release Mungul Pandy, they would shoot 
him. But he held the desperate fanatic until Baugh 
and the sergeant-major had escaped, and doubtless to 
his fidelity they owed their lives. 

Meanwhile, tidings of the tumult had reached the 
quarters of General Hearsey. An orderly rushed into 
the portico of his house and told him that the Brigade 
had risen. His two sons, officers of the Sepoy Army, 
were with him ; and now the three, having ordered 
their horses to be saddled and brought round, put on 
their uniform and accoutrements and prepared at once 
to proceed to the scene of action. It seemed so pro- 
bable that all the regiments had turned out in a 
frenzy of alarm, that, whilst the horses were being 
saddled, Hearsey wrote hasty notes, to be despatched 
in case of need to the officers commanding the Euro- 
peans at Chinsurah and Dum-Dum, calling upon 
them to march down at once to his assistance. He 
had just sealed them, when first the Adjutant of the 



THE SCENE AT THE QUARTER- GUARD. 541 

Forty-third, smeared with the blood of the wounded March, 1857. 

officers, and then the Commandant of the Regiment, 

came up to report, in detail, what had happened. The 

story then told him was a strange one ; for it seemed 

not that the Brigade, but that a single Sepoy had 

risen ^ and was setting the State at defiance. It is 

hard to say whether the surprise or the indignation 

of the gallant veteran were greater, when he asked 

whether there was no one to shoot or to secure the 

madman. But it was plain that no time was to be 

lost. So, mounting their horses, Hearsey and his 

sons galloped down to the parade-ground, and saw 

for themselves what was passing. 

There was a great crowd of Sepoys, mostly unarmed 
and undressed, and there were several European 
officers, some mounted and some on foot ; much con- 
fusion and some consternation, but apparently no 
action. Mungul Pandy, still master of the situation, 
was pacing up and down, in front of the Quarter- 
Guard, calling upon his comrades in vehement tones, 
and with excited action, to follow his example, as the 
Europeans were coming down upon them, and to die 
bravely for their religion. But the crowd of Sepoys, 
though none remembered at that moment that they 
were servants of the State, none came forward to 
support discipline and authority, were not ripe for 
open mutiny ; and when Mungul Pandy reviled them 
as cowards, who had first excited and then deserted 
liim, they hung irresolutely back, clustering together 
like sheep, and wondering what would happen next. 
The arrival of the General solved the question. As 
soon as he saw Mungul Pandy in front of the Quarter- 
Guard, he rode towards it, accompanied by his sons 
and by his Division-Staff, Major Ross, and when an 
officer cried out to him to take care, as the mutineer's 



542 OUTBREAK OF TUE MUTINY. 

Muicli, 1S57. musket was loaded, answered, " Damn liis musket/' 
and rode on to do his duty. 

Little inclination was there on the part of the 
Jemadar and the men of the Guard to obey the 
General's orders ; but the manner of Hearsey at that 
moment was the manner of a man not to be denied ; 
and supported by his sons, each of the gallant Three 
with his hand upon his revolver, there was instant 
death in disobedience. So the Jemadar and the 
Guard, thus overawed, followed Hearsey and his sons 
to the place where Mungul Pandy was striding about 
menacingly with his musket in his hand. As they 
approached the mutineer, John Hearsey cried out, 
'' Father, he is taking aim at you." " If I fall, John," 
said the General, "rush upon him and put him to 
death." But Mungul Pandy did not fire upon 
Hearsey ; he turned his weapon upon himself. He 
saw that the game was up ; and so, placing the butt 
of his musket on the ground, and the muzzle of the 
piece to his breast, he discharged it by the pressure of 
his foot, and fell burnt and wounded to the ground. 

As he lay there convulsed and shivering, with his 
blood-stained sword beneath him, the officers thought 
that he was dying. But medical assistance came 
promptly, the wound was examined and found to be 
only superficial, so the wounded man was carried to 
the Hospital; and then Hearsey rode among the 
Sepoys, telling them, as he had often told them 
before, that their alarms were groundless, that the 
Government had no thought of interfering with their 
religion, and that he saw with regret how lamentably 
they had failed in their duty, in not arresting or 
shooting down a man who had thus shown himself to 
be a rebel and a murderer. They answered that 
he was a madman, intoxicated to frenzy by bang. 



THE NINETEENTH. 543 

''And if so," said Hearsey, "why not have shot him March, 1S57. 

down as you would have shot a mad elephant or a 

mad dog, if he resisted you." Some answered that he 

had a loaded musket. " What !" replied the General, 

"are you afraid of a loaded musket?" They were 

silent; and he dismissed them with scorn. It was 

plain that they had ceased to be soldiers. 

Hearsey returned to his quarters that Sabbath 
evening, heavy with thought of the work before him. 
He had received his orders to execute the sentence 
that had been passed on the Nineteenth Re^rment. 
That sentence had now been publicly proclaimed iii z 
general order to the whole Army. On Tuesday morn- 
ing, in the presence of all the troops, European and . 
Native, at the Presidency, the Berhampore mutineers 
were to be turned adrift on the world, destitute and 
degraded ; and it was not to be doubted that they 
would carry with them the Sympathies of their 
comrades in all parts of the country. That there was 
prospective danger in this was certain, for every dis- 
banded Sepoy might have become an emissary of 
evil ; but there was a great and present danger, far 
too formidable in itself to suffer thoughts of the future 
to prevail ; for it was probable that the Nineteenth 
would resist their sentence, and that all the Native 
troops at the Presidency would aid them in their re- 
sistance. Some thought that the Barrackpore Brigade 
would anticipate the event, and that on Monday there 
would be a general rising of the Sepoys, and that the 
officers and their families would be butchered by the 
mutineers. The first blood had been shed. Mungul 
Pandy was only the fugleman. So many of the 
Enoflish ladies in Barrackpore left the cantonment 
and sought safety for a while in Calcutta. But there 
was no place at that time more secure than that 



5-14 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

AtarcQ, 1857. v.'liicli they had quitted; and they found tliat the 
inmates of the asylum they had sought were as much 
alarmed as themselves. 

It has been said that, halted at Barasut on the 
oOth of March, the Nineteenth learnt what had 
happened on the preceding evening. The Thirty- 
fourth had sent out their emissaries to meet their old 
friends and comrades of Lucknow, to prompt them 
to resistance, and to promise to cast in their own lot 
with their brethren and to die for their religion. And 
this, too, it is said, with murderous suggestions of a 
general massacre of the white officers. But the Nine- 
teenth shook their heads at the tempters. They had 
expressed their sorrow for what had happened, and 
they had implored that they might be suffered to 
prove their loyalty by going on service to any part of 
the world. They had never at heart been mutinous, 
and they would not now rise against the Government 
whose salt they had eaten and whose uniform they 
had worn. But the bonds of a great sympathy re- 
strained them from denouncing their comrades, so 
they suffered in silence the tempters to return to 
their own Lines. 

Mnrdi 31, As the morning dawned upon them, obedient to 

1Sj7. orders, they commenced the last march that they were 

])lsband- ^^cr to make as soldiers. Heavy-hearted, penitent, 

i.icut of the cj^j^^ ^yij^l^ iiiQ remains of a great fear still clino;ino^ to 

Ninetceuth. . . o o 

them, they went to their doom. A mile from Barrack- 
pore, Hearsey met them with his final orders, and 
placing himself in front of the column, rode back with 
them to the parade-ground which was to be the scene 
of their disbandment. There all the available troops 
in the Presidency division, European and Native, 
v\^ere drawn up to receive them. Steadily they 
mavched on to the ground which had been marked 



DISBANDMEiNT OF THE NINETEENTH. 545 

out for them, and found themselves face to face with March, 1857. 
the guns. If there had been any thought of resistance, 
it would have passed away at the first sight of that 
imposing array of white troops and the two field- 
batteries which confronted them. But they had never 
thought of anything but submission. Obedient, there- 
fore, to the word of command, up to the last moment 
of their military existence, they listened in silence to 
the General's brief preliminary address, in silence to 
the General Order of Government announcing the 
sentence of disbandment ; without a murmur, opened 
their ranks, piled their arms at the word of command 
as though they had been on a common parade, and 
then hung their belts upon their bayonets. The 
colours of the regiment were then brought to the 
front, and laid upon a rest composed of a little pile of 
crossed muskets. It was an anxious moment, for 
though the Nineteenth were penitent and submissive, 
the temper of some of the other regiments, and espe- 
cially of the Thirty -fourth, was not to be trusted ; 
and for a while it was believed that the men, who two 
days before had thrown off the mask, were prepared 
to fire upon their officers. The rumour ran that 
many of the Sepoys of that guilty regiment were on 
parade with loaded muskets, and Hearsey was advised 
to prove them by ordering the regiment to spring 
ramrods. But he wisely rejected the advice, saying 
that all was going well, and that lie would not mar 
the effect of the peaceable disbandment of the regi- 
ment by a movement that might excite a collision. 
He was right. The work that he had in hand was 
quietly completed. The men of the Nineteenth were 
marched to a distance from their arms, and the pay 
that was due to them brought out for disbursement. 
They had now ceased to be soldiers ; but there was nc 

2n 



'546 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

March, 1857. further degradation in store for them. Hearsey ad< 
dressed them in tones of kindness, saying that though 
the Government had decreed their summary dismissal, 
their uniforms would not be stripped from their backs, 
and that as a reward for their penitence and good 
conduct on the march from Berhampore, they would 
be provided at the public cost with carriage to convey 
them to their homes. This kindness made a deep im- 
pression upon them. Many of them lifted up their 
voices, bewailing their fate and loudly declaring that 
they would revenge themselves upon the Thirty-fourth, 
who had tempted them to their undoing. One man, 
apparently spokesman for his comrades, said, " Give 
us back our arms for ten minutes before we go ; and 
leave us alone with the Thirty-fourth to settle our 
account with them."* 

Whilst the men of what had once been the Nine- 
teenth were being paid, Hearsey addressed the other 
Native regiments on parade, very much as he had ad- 
dressed them before ; but urging upon them the con- 
sideration of the fact that the Nineteenth, in which 
there were four hundred Brahmins and a hundred 
and fifty Rajpoots, had been sent to their homes, and 
were at liberty to visit what shrines they pleased, and 
to worship where their fathers had worshipped before 
them, as a proof that the report which had been 

* Lord Canning's reasons for punislimeut is severe enouf^li witli- 

sparingthem the deeper degradation out being made to gall and rankle, 

are thus given in a letter to General It was for this reason that I did not 

Anson : " I sent you a copy of the originally prescribe that the number 

General Order yesterday. I have of the regiment should be removed 

determined to omit the words which from the Army List, or that tlie men 

require that the men shall be de- should be turned out of cantonment 

prived 'of the uniform which they ignominiously, as was done in the 

nave dishonoured.' Heavy as has case of the Thirty-fourth thirteen 

been their crime — none heavier — it years ago. The abstaining from 

IS not a mean or abject one : such as stripping their uniforms from them 

refusing to march to a post of wiR be a further relaxation in the 

danger ; and the substance of their same spirit." — MS. Correspondence. 



DISPERSION OF THE NINETEENTH. 547 

circulated of the intention of Government to interfere Marcli, 1S57. 
with their relio:ion was nothino; but a base falsehood. 
The men listened attentively to what was said , and 
when the time came for their dismissal, they went 
quietly to their lines. It was nearly nine o'clock 
before the men of the old Nineteenth had been paid 
up ; and, under an European escort, were marched 
out of Barrackpore. As they moved off, they cheered 
the fine old soldier, whose duty it had been to dis- 
band them, and wished him a long and a happy life ; 
and he went to his house with a heart stirred to its 
very depths with a compassionate sorrow, feeling 
doubtless that it was the saddest morning's work he 
had ever done, but thanking God that it had been 
done so peacefully and with such perfect success. 



2n2 



548 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINT. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE MONTH OP APRIL — PROGllESS OP ALARM — THE PANIC AT UMBALLAH— 

GENERAL ANSOiS^'s ADDRESS EVENTS AT MEERUT — THE BONE-DUST 

PLOUR— THE STORY OF THE CHUPATTIES— INTRIGUES OP THE NANA SAHIB 
— APPAIRS AT LUCKNOW. 

Bamckpore. NoT less thankful was Lord Canning, when tidings 
^^^ ' ^ * were brought to him at Calcutta that all had passed 
off quietly at Barrackpore. He had sent one of his 
Aides-de-camp, Captain Baring, to witness the dis- 
bandment of the Nineteenth, and to bring back to 
him, with all possible despatch, intelligence of the 
events of the morning. And now that good news 
had come, he telegraphed it at once to the Com- 
mander-in-Chief, and made it known throughout the 
city, to the intense relief of many frightened resi- 
dents, who had anticipated a general rising of the 
Native troops, and the massacre of all the European 
inhabitants. For the moment, at least, the danger 
had passed; and a little breathing-time was per- 
mitted to Government. Now that the disbandment 
of the Nineteenth had been effected, and the men 
Avere going quietly to their homes, there was leisure 
to think of the far greater crime of the Thirty-fourth. 
The case of Mungul Pandy, who had cut down his 
of&cer, was one to raise no questionings. Nor, indeed, 
could there be much doubt about the Jemadar of the 



THE THIRTY-FOURTH. 549 

Guard, who had suffered such an outrage to be com- April, ] 857. 
mitted before his eyes. The former was tried by 
Court-martial on the 6th of April, and sentenced to 
be hanged; and, on the 10th and 11th, the latter 
was tried, ard sentenced to the same ignominious 
death. On the 8th, Mungul Pandy paid the penalty 
of his crime on the gallows, in the presence of all the 
troops, at Barrackpore. But although without loss of 
time the Jemadar was condemned to be hanged, the 
execution lagged behind the sentence in a manner 
that must have greatly marred the effect of the ex- 
ample. A legal difficulty arose, which, for a while, 
held retribution in restraint,* and the men of the 
Brio;ade beo^an to think that Government lacked 
the resolution to inflict condign punishment on the 
offender. 

JSTor was this the only apparent symptom of irreso- 
lution. The Thirty-fourth had been more guilty than 
the Nineteenth ; but punishment had not overtaken 
it. The men still went about with their arms in 
their hands ; and there was scarcely a European in 
Barrackpore who believed that he was safe from 
their violence. As officers returned at night from 
their regimental messes, they thought that their own 
Sepoys would fall upon them in the darkness, and 
social intercourse after nightfall between the ladies 

* "The execution of a Native oiE- Tlie delay was caused by the Com- 

cer of his rank," wrote Lord Caiininic mander-iu-Cliief not havinj^ given 

to the President of the Board of authority to General Hearsey, in 

Control, " convicted by his brother his warrant, to carry out sentencos 

officers, will have a most wholesome ao:ainst any but non-commissioned 

effect. Such a thing is quite unpre- of&cers, and by an opinion utterly 

cedeuted. There has been a delay erroneous of the Judge Advocate, 

between the sentence and the exe- who is with the Commander-in-Chief, 

cution which has vexed me, as it that the authority could not be given, 

may give an appearance of hesitation Hence nearly a week was lost, and 

to the proceedings Of Government, with it something of the sharpness 

which would be mischievous, and of the example." — MS. Correspond- 

which never has existed for a moment, edcc of Lord Canmny, 



550 OUTEKEAK OF THE MUTlJsT. 

April, 1857. of the station was suspended.* All this was known 
and deplored ; but it was felt, upon the other hand, 
that if there were evil in delay, there was evil also in 
any appearance of haste.f Mindful that the dis- 
affection in the Sepoy regiments had its root in fear, 
and believing that any undue severity would in- 
crease their irritation, the Governor-General caused 
all the circumstances of the excitement of the Thirty- 
fourth to be sifted to the bottom, and hoped thereby 
to elicit information which might guide him to a 
right understanding of the matter. The regiment 
once disbanded, there would be no hope of further 
revelations. So all through the month of April their 
doom was unpronounced. Courts of Inquiry were 
being held for the purpose of ascertaining the general 
temper of the regiment. It appeared that for some 
time there had been a Avant of loyalty and good feel- 
ing in the Thirty-fourth ; that Native officers and 
Sepoys had been disrespectful in their manner to- 
wards their Enolish officers ; and altoo^ether there had 
been such a lack of discipline, that the officers, when 
questioned, said that if the regiment had been or- 

* It does not appear that any out- liasty measure of retribution, betray- 

rages v.ero actually committed ; but ing animosity, or an unjust act of 

one night a Sepoy appeared sud- severity, would confirm, instead of 

denly in a threatening attitude be- allaying, the temper which is abroad, 

fore a young officer, as lie was on Jt is not possible to say with confi- 

his way home, upon which, being a dence what the causes are ; but with 

stalwart and brave fellow, the Eng- the common herd there is a sincere 

lish subaltern knocked him down. fear for their caste, and a conviction 

t A little later the Governor-Gene- that this has been in danger from 

ral wrote : "The mutinous spirit is the cartridges and other causes. This 

not quelled here, and I feel no con- feeling is played upon by others from 

fidence of being able to eradicate it outside, and, to some extent, \Aith 

very speedily, although the outbreaks political objects. But, upon the 

may be repressed easily. The spirit whole, political animosity does not 

of disaifection, or rather of mistrust, go for much in the present move- 

for it is more that, has spread fur- ment, and certainly does not actuate 

ther than I thought six weeks ago, the Sepoys in the muss."— Lord Can- 

but widely rather than deeply, and ning to Lord Elphinstone, May 6, 

it requires very wary walking. A 1857. — MS. Correspondence, 



THE THIRTY-FOURTH. 551 

dered on service tliey would have had little faith in April, 1857 
the fidelity of the great bulk of the soldiery. And at 
last an opinion was recorded to the effect that "the 
Sikhs and Mussulmans of the Thirty-fourth Regi- 
ment of Native Infantry were trustworthy soldiers of 
the State, but that the Hindoos generally of that 
corps were not to be trusted." So the Government 
took into deliberate consideration the disbandment of 
the regiment, with the exception of those officers and 
soldiers who had been absent from Barracl^pore at 
the time of the outrage of the 29th of March, or who 
had at any time made practical demonstration of 
their loyalty and fidelity to the State.* 

But before judgment was pronounced and sen- 
tence executed, there had been much in other parts 
of the country to disturb the mind of the Governor- 
General. He was a man of a hopeful nature, and 
a courageous heart that never suffered him to exag- 
gerate the dangers of the Future, or to look gloomily 
at the situation of the Present ; but it was plain that 
the little cloud which had arisen at the end of 
January, was now, in the early part of April, rapidly 
spreading itself over the entire firmament. Already 
the sound of the thunder had been heard from dis- 
tant stations beneath the shadow of the Himalayahs, 

'-•'" Three companies of the TLirty- must be regarded as an additional 

fourth had been on detachment duty proof of the external agency that 

at Chittagong. No suspicion of dis- was, I beheve, at the beginning of 

loyalty had attached to them, and 1857, employed to corrupt the Se- 

M'hen they heard of what had passed poys at the Presidency. Tt is a cir- 

at Barrackpore, they sent in a memo- cumstance also to be noticed, that the 

rial, saying tliat they had heard with very Soubahdar of the Mint-Guard, 

extreme regret of the disgraceful who had arrested the Sepovs of the 

conduct of Mungul Pandy and the Second Grenadiers, was accused, ia 

Guard; that they well knew that the course of the inquiry into the 

the Government would not interfere conduct and temper of the Thirty- 

with their religion; and that tiiey fourth, of being a prime mover of 

would remain " faithful for ever." If sedition, 
they were sincere, their sincerity 



552 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

Apfil, 1857. and it was little likely that, througliout tlie interven- 
ing country, there was a single cantonment by which 
the alarm had not been caught — a single Native regi- 
ment in which the new rifle and the greased car- 
tridges were not subjects of excited discussion. 
Retrospect of The Head-quartcrs of the Army were at that time 
Um^a^llali ^^ Umballah, at the foot of the great hills, a thou- 
Maicli, 1857. sand miles from Calcutta. There General Anson 
having returned from his hasty visit to Calcutta, was 
meditating a speedy retreat to Simlah, when the un- 
quiet spirit in the Native regiments forced itself 
upon his attention. This station was one of the 
Depots of Instruction, at which the use of the new 
rifle was taught to representative men from the dif- 
ferent regiments in that part of the country. These 
men were picked soldiers, of more than common 
aptitude and intelligence, under some of the best 
Native ofticers in the service. The explanations of 
their instructors seemed to have disarmed their sus- 
picions, and they attended their instruction parades 
without any sign of dissatisfaction. They had not 
advanced so far in their drill as to require to use tlie 
cartridges ; and, indeed, the new ammunition had 
not yet been received from Meerut. But the Com- 
mander-in-Chief believed that the men were satis- 
fled, until a circumstance occurred which loudly pro- 
claimed, and ought to have struck home to him the 
conviction, that the great fear which had taken pos- 
session of men's minds was too deeply seated to be 
eradicated by any single measure of the Government, 
and too widely spread to be removed by any local 
orders. What solace was there in the assurance that 
no cartridges lubricated with the obnoxious grease 
had been, or ever would be, issued to them, if the 
cartridge-paper used by them were unclean? and 



ALARM AT UMB ALLAH. 553 

even if their own minds were cleansed of all foul Maidi, 1857. 
suspicions, what did this avail, so long as their com- "^ ^ ^ • 
rades in the several regiments to which they be- 
longed believed them to be defiled, and were, there- 
fore, casting them out from the brotherhood? 

The Thirty-sixth Reghnent formed the escort of 
the Commander-in-Chief There was a detachment 
from it in the Rifle Depot ; and it happened that one 
day, at the end of the third week of March, two non- 
commissioned officers from this detachment visited 
the regimental camp, and were publicly taunted by 
a Soubahdar with having become Christians. They 
carried back this story to the Depot, and one of 
them, when he told it to Lieutenant Martineau, the 
Instructor, cried like a child in his presence, said 
that he was an outcast, and that the men of his 
regiment had refused to eat with him. A man of 
more than common quickness of intelligence and 
depth of thought, Martineau saw at once the terrible 
significance of this, and he pushed his inquiries 
further among the men of the Depot. The result 
left no doubt upon his mind, that in every detach- 
ment there was the same strong feeling of terror, lest 
having used the new greased cartridges, or having 
been suspected of using them, they should become 
outcasts from their regiments, and shunned by their 
brethren on returning to their own villages. This 
was no mere fancy. Already had the detachments 
found their intercourse v/ith their regiments sus- 
pended. They had written letters to their distant 
comrades and received no answers ; and now they 
asked, not without a great show of reason, " If a 
Soubahdar in the Commander-in-Chief's camp, and 
on duty as his personal escort, can taunt us with loss 
of caste, what kind of reception shall we meet on our 



55i: OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

Marcli, 1S57. return to our own corps? No reward tliat Govern- 
ment can offer us is any equivalent for being re- 
garded as outcasts by our own comrades." Plainly, 
then, it was Martineau's duty to communicate all 
that he knew to the Commander-in-Chief, and being 
his duty, he was not a man to shrink from doing it. 
So he wrote at once to the Assistant- Adjutant-General, 
Septimus Becher, and told his story — privately in 
the first instance, but afterwards, at Becher's sug- 
gestion, in an official letter. But already had the 
Commander-in-Chief learnt also from other sources 
the feeling of consternation that was pervading the 
minds of the men of the Depot. On the 19th of 
March the Soubahdar had insulted the men of the 
detachment ; on the 20th, Martineau wrote his first 
letter to Anson's Staff; on the morning of the 23rd 
the Commander-in-Chief was to inspect the Rifle 
Depot ; and on the previous evening a report reached 
him that the men of the detachments wished to speak 
to him, through their delegates, on parade. He de- 
termined, therefore, to take the initiative, and to ad- 
dress them. So, after the Inspection parade, he 
formed the detachments into a hollow square, and 
calling the Native officers to the front, within a short 
distance of his Staff, began his oration to the troops. 
He had not the advantage, which Hearsey enjoyed, 
of being able to address them fluently in their owji 
language. But, if his discourse was therefore less 
impressive, it was not less clear ; for calling Mar- 
tineau to his aid, Anson paused at the end of each 
brief sentence, heard it translated into Hindostanee, 
and asked if the men understood its import. It was 
thus that he spoke to them : 

Addressofthe "The Commander-in-Chief is desirous ot taking 

Commander- • /> i i . n t i 

ill-Chief. this opportunity ol addressing a lew words to the 



GENERAL ANSON'S ADDRESS. 555 

}v'ative officers assembled at this Depot, wMcli has Marcli, 1857. 
been formed for the instruction of the Army in the 
use of the new Rifle. The Native officers have been 
selected for this duty on account of their superior in- 
telligence upon all matters connected with the service 
to which they belong. The Commander-in-Chief 
feels satisfied, therefore, that they will exercise that 
intelligence, and employ the influence which their 
positions warrant him in supposing they possess, for 
the good of the men who are placed under their 
authority, and for the advantage of the Army gene- 
rally. In no way can this be more beneficially 
proved than in disabusing their minds of any mis- 
taken notion which they may have been led to enter- 
tain respecting the intentions and orders of the Go- 
vernment whom they have engaged to serve. The 
introduction of a better arm has rendered it neces- 
sary to adopt a different system of loading it, and an 
improved description of cartridge. The Commander- 
in-Chief finds that, on account of the appearance of 
the paper used for the cartridges, and of the material 
with which they are made up according to the pat- 
terns sent from England, objections have been raised 
to their use by Sepoys of various Religions and 
Castes, and that endeavours have been made to in- 
duce them to believe that it is the express object of 
the Government to subvert their Religion and to sub- 
ject them to the loss of Caste on which they set so 
high a value. 

" A moment's calm reflection must convince every 
one how utterly groundless and how impossible it is 
that there can be the slightest shadow of truth in 
such a suspicion. In what manner or degree could 
the Government gain by such a proceeding? Can 
any one explain what could be the object of it? The 



556 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

March, 1857. Commander-in-Chief is sure tliat all will allow tliat 
"^ ^ ^^* nothing has ever occurred to justify a suspicion that 
the Government ever wished to coerce the r^atives of 
India in matters of Religion, or to interfere unneces- 
sarily with their Customs, or even with the cere- 
monies which belong to their different Castes. 

" The Commander-in-Chief regrets to hear that 
there have been instances in the Army of the dis- 
belief of the Sepoys in the assurances of their officers 
that they would not be required to use cartridges 
which were made of materials to which they could 
reasonably object, and that they have acted in a 
manner which must destroy all confidence in them 
as soldiers, whose first duty is obedience to the Go- 
vernment whom they serve, and to their superiors. 
The Government will know how to deal with such 
instances of insubordination, and the Commander- 
in-Chief does not hesitate to say that they should be 
visited with the severest punishment. 

^'But the object of the Commander-in-Chief is not 
to threaten, and he hopes that it is unnecessary even 
to point out to those whose breasts are decorated 
with proofs of gallantry and good service, what is 
their duty. He wishes simply to assure them, on 
the honour of a soldier like themselves, that it has 
never been, and never will be, the policy of the 
Government of this great country to coerce either 
those serving in the Army or the Natives of India in 
their religious feelings, or to interfere with the cus- 
toms of their Castes. He trusts to the Native officers 
who are present here to make this known to their 
respective regiments, and to exert themselves in 
allaying the fears of those who may have been mo- 
mentarily seduced from their duty by evil-disposed 
persons. He is satisfied that they will do everything 



ALARM OF THE DETACHMENTS. 557 

in their power to prevent the sliame which must fall March, 1857 
upon all who are faithless to the colours under which ^^ ^ ^ • 
they have sworn allegiance to the Government, and 
that they will prove themselves deserving of the high 
character which they have always hitherto main- 
tained in this Army." 

The Native officers in front, who alone, perhaps, 
were enabled by their position to hear the address 
of the Chief, listened attentively and with a respect- 
ful demeanour to what was said ; and when the 
parade was over, they expressed to Martineau, 
through the medium of three of their body acting as 
spokesmen, their high sense of the honour that had 
been done to them by the condescension of His Ex- 
cellency in addressing them on parade. But they 
urged upon him that, although they did not them- 
selves attribute to the Government any of the evil 
designs referred to in that address, it was true that 
for one man who disbelieved the story, there were 
ten thousand who believed it ; that it was univer- 
sally credited, not only in their regiments, but every- 
where in their native villages ; and that, therefore, 
although the men of the detachments were ready to 
a man to use the cartridge when ordered, they de- 
sired to represent, for the paternal consideration of 
the Commander-in-Chief, the social consequences to 
themselves of military obedience. They would be- 
come outcasts for ever, shunned by their comrades, 
and discarded by their families, and would thus 
suffer for their obedience the most terrible punish- 
ment that could be inflicted upon them upon this 
side of the grave.* Martineau promised to repre- 

* Lieutenant Martineau to Cap- of intelligence and fidelity thus be- 
tain Septimus Becher. The writer comes to them the most fatal curse : 
adds : " Their being selected as men they will obey the orders of their 



55S OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. - 

?.farch, 1857. sent all this to the Commander-in-Chief; and he 
did so in an official letter, through the legitimaf 
channel of the Adjutant- General's office. The matte 
was weighing heavily upon Anson's mind. He saw 
clearly what the difficulty was. " I have no doubt," 
he wrote on that day to the Governor-General, "that 
individually they (the men of the detachments) are 
content, and that their own minds will be set at rest ; 
but it is the manner in which they will be received 
by their comrades, when they regain their regiments, 
that weighs upon my mind." But what was to be 
done? To remove from their minds all fear of the 
greased cartridges was only to drive them upon an 
equal fear of the greased paper, which it was still 
more difficult to remove.* He had thought at one 
time of breaking up the Depot, and sending back the 
detachments to their regiments, on the ground of the 
advanced state of the season ; but this Avould only, 

military superiors, and socially perish to regard the greased cartridges, 
through their instinct ol obedience, alleged to be smeared with cows' and 
Thattlieirviews are not exaggerated, pigs' fat, more as the medium than 
some knowledge of the native cha- as the original cause of this wide- 
racter, and of the temper of the spread feeling of distrust that is 
Native mind (non-military as well as spreading dissatisfaction to our rule, 
military) at this present moment, and tending to alienate the fidelity 
tend to convince me. The Asiatic of the Native Army." 
mind is periodically prone to fits of * « I am not so much surprised," 
religious panic; in this state, reason- wrote General Auson to Lord Can- 
ing that would satisfy us is utterly ning on the 23rd of March, "at their 
tlirown away upon them; their ima- objections to the cartridges, having 
ginations run riot on preconceived seen them. 1 had no idea they con- 
views, and often the more absurd they tained, or rather are smeared with, 
are, the more tenaciously do they such a quantity of grease, which 
cling to them. We are now pass- looks exactly like fat. After ram- 
ing through one of these paroxysms, ming down the ball, the muzzle of 
which we might safely disregard were the musket is covered with it. This, 
not unfortunately the military ele- however, will, I imagine, not be the 
ment mixed up in it. What the ex- case with those prepared according 
citing causes are that at this present to the late instructions. But there 
moment are operating on the Native are now misgivings about the paper, 
mind, to an universal extent through- and I think it so desirable that they 
out these provinces, I cannot dis- should be assured that no animal 
cover; no Native can or will ofi'er grease is used in its manufacture, 
any explanation, but 1 am disposed thiit a special report shall be made 



VIEWS OF LORD CANNING. 559' 

he argued on reflection, be a cowardly staving-ofF of Marcli, 1857. 
the question, so he determined merely to direct that "^"^^^^^^• 
the drill instruction should not proceed to the point 
of firing until a special report should have been re- 
ceived from Meerut on the subject of the suspected 
paper. 

To Lord Canning, it appeared that any postpone- 
ment of the target practice of the drill detachments 
would be a mistake. It would be a concession to 
unreasonable fears, which would look like an ad- 
mission that there was reason in them; so, having 
first telegraphed to Umballah the substance of his 
letter, he wrote to General Anson, saying : '' I -^P^J^ *» 
gather that you are not decidedly in favour of this 
course, and certainly I am much opposed to it 
myself. The men, it seems, have no objection of 
their own to use the cartridges, but dread the 
taunts of their comrades after they have rejoined. 
These taunts will be founded, not on their having 
handled unclean grease, for against that the whole 
Army has been protected for many weeks past by 
the late orders, but upon suspicions respecting the 
paper Now, although in the matter of grease the 
Government was in some degree in the wrong (not 
having taken all the precaution that might have 
been taken to exclude objectionable ingredients), in 

to me on that head from I^feerut, would only be deferred till another 
and until I receive an answer, and year, and I trust that the measures 
am satisfied that no objectionable taken by the Government when the 
material is used, no firinj^ at the objection was first made, and the 
depots by the Sepoys will take place, example of the punishment of tiie 
It would be easy to dismiss the de- Nineteenth Native Infantry, and of 
tachments to their regiments with- the other delinquents of the Seven- 
out any practice, on the ground that tieth, now being tried by a general 
the hot weather is so advanced, and court-martial, will have the effect we 
that very little progress could be desire." [It is probable that General 
made, but I do not think that would Anson here referred to the trial of 
be advisable. The question having the men of the Second Grenadiers.] 
been raised, must be settled. It — MS. Correspondence, 



560 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

April, 1S57. the matter of paper it is entirely in the right. There 
'^^ ^ *^ * is nothing offensive to the Caste of the Sepoys in the 
paper ; they have no pretence for saying so. The 
contrary has been proved ; and if we give way upon 
this point I do not see where we can take our stand. 
It may be, as you hope, that the detachments at 
Umballah, being well-conditioned men, would not 
consider a compliance with their request as a giving 
way on the part of the Government, or as a victory 
on their own part. But I fear it would be so with 
their comrades in the regiments. When the detach- 
ments return to their Head-quarters, they would 
give an account of the concession they had obtained, 
w^hich would inevitably, and not unreasonably, lead 
to the suspicion that the Government is doubtful of 
the right of its own case. It could hardly be other- 
wise ; and if so, we should have increased our diffi- 
culties for hereafter — for I have no faith in this 
question dying away of itself during the idleness of 
the hot season, unless it is grappled with at once. I 
would, therefore, make the men proceed to use the 
cartridges at practice. It will be no violence to 
their own consciences, for they are satisfied that the 
paper is harmless ; and it will, in my opinion, much 
more effectually pave the way towards bringing their 
several regiments to reason, whether the objections 
thereto felt are sincere or not, than any postpone- 
ment. Moreover, I do not think that we can quite 
consistently take any other course after w^hat has 
passed with the Nineteenth Regiment ; for, though 
the climax of their crime was taking up arms, the 
refusal of the cartridges has been declared to be the 
beginning of the offence. Neither do I like the 
thought of countenancing consultations and refe- 
rences between the men of a regiment upon matters 



GENERAL ANSON AT SIMLAH. 561 

m wMcli they have nothing to do but to obey ; and April, 1857*, 
I fear that postponement would look like an acqui- ^ ^ ' 
escence in such references." So it was determined 
that there should be no cowardly postponement of 
the evil day, and the detachments in the Musketry 
Schools were ordered to proceed, under the new regu- 
lations, to the end of their course of instruction.* 

Whilst this letter was making its way to the foot 
of the Hills, General Anson, whose health had been 
severely tried, and who had long been looking 
anxiously towards the cool, fresh slopes of the 
Himalayahs, betook himself hopefully to Simlah. 
That paradise of invalids, he wrote to the Governor- 
General, was '' looking beautiful, and the climate 
now quite perfect." " I heartily wish," he added, 
" that you were here to benefit by it." But it was 
not a time for the enjoyment of Himalayan delights. 
At both ends of that long line of a thousand miles 
between the great Presidency town and the foot of 
the Hills there was that which, as the month ad- 
vanced, must have sorely disquieted the minds of 
the civil and military chiefs. There was the great 
difficulty of the Thirty-fourth to disturb both the 
Governor- General and the Commander-in-Chief; and 
as time advanced, there came from other parts of the 
country tidings which, if they did not help them to 
fathom causes, brought more plainly before them the 
probable consequences of this great panic in the 

* The orders issued from the Ad- their officers were to reason with 

jutaut-Generars office, in conse- them, cahnly in the first instance, 

quence of this decision, were, that and if the Depot, after such an ap- 

the detachments should proceed to peal to them, were to refuse to use 

target practice, that they should the cartridges, more stringent mea- 

choose and apply their own grease, sures were to be resorted to for the 

and that they should pinch or tear enforcement of discipline. — See Letter 

off the end of the cartridge with from Adjutant -General to General 

their fingers. In the event of the Hearsey, in the Appendix. 
men hesitating to use the cartridges, 

2 



562 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

April, 1857. Sepoy Army. Those significant fires, which had pre- 
"^ ^ ^^' lucled the outbreak at Barrackpore, were breaking 
out at other stations. At Umballah especially, in 
the middle of the month of April, they had become 
frequent and alarming. The detachments in the 
Musketry Schools were now proceeding steadily with 
their target practice. They dipped their own cartridges 
into a mixture of beeswax and ghee, and seemed to 
be fully convinced and assured that no foul play was 
intended against them. But they did not escape the 
taunts of their comrades ; and the nightly fires in- 
dicated the general excitement among the Native 
soldiery. The European barracks, the commissariat 
store-houses, the hospital, and the huts in the Lines, 
night after night, burst out into mysterious confla- 
gration. It was the belief at Head-Quarters that 
these fires, made easy by the dry thatched roofs of 
the buildings, were the work partly of the Sepoys 
of the regiments stationed there, and partly of those 
attached to the Musketry Depot. The former still 
looked askance at the latter, believing that they 
had been bought over by promises of promotion to 
use the obnoxious cartridges, and, as a mark of 
their indignation, set fire to the huts of the apos- 
tates in their absence at drill. Upon this the men 
of the IMusketry School retaliated, by firing the 
Lines of the regimental Sepoys.* But the Courts of 
Inquiry which were held to investigate the circum- 
stances of these incendiary fires failed to elicit any 
positive information ; for no one was willing to give 

* "The night before last a fire- Native Infantry were fired, and five 

ball was found ignited in the liut of huts, with all the men's property, 

a Sepoy of the Tiftii Native Infantry, destroyed. This was clearly an act 

The hut was empty, as the man is of retaliation, for incendiaries do not 

attached to the School of Musketry, destroy themselves."— Genera} Bar- 

and lives with them. On the foU nard to Lord Canning. April 24, 

lowing night the Lines of the Sixtieih 1857. — MS. Correspondence, 



SIR HENRY BARNARD. 563 

evidence, and notliing was done to put pressure upon April, 1S57. 
witnesses to reveal the knowledge which they pos- °^ ^ ^ • 
sessed. 

At this time Sir Henry Barnard, an officer of sirHemj 
good repute, who had served with distinction in the ^^^^^^■^• 
Crimea, commanded the Sirhind Division of the 
Army, in which Umballah was one of the chief sta- 
tions. He was a man of high courage and activity, 
eager for service, and though he had not been many 
months in the country, he had begun to complain of 
the dreadful listlessness of Indian life, and the ab- 
sence of that constant work and responsibility which, 
he said, had become a necessity to him. " Cannot 
you find some tough job to put me to ? I will serve 
you faithfully." Thus he wrote to Lord Canning in 
the last week of April, seeing nothing before him at 
that time but a retreat to Simlah " when the burn- 
ing mania is over." Little thought he then of the 
tough job in store for him — a job too tough for his 
steel, good as was the temper of it. The Commander- 
in-Chief wrote from Simlah that Barnard was learn- 
ing his work. " It will take him some time," said 
Anson, " to understand the Native character and 
system." And no reproach to him either;* for 
nothing was more beyond the ordinary comprehen- 
sion of men, trained in schools of European warfare, 
than Sepoy character in its normal state, except its 
aberrations and eccent^cities. Anson had been two 
years in India; bul he confessed that what was 
passing at Umballah sorely puzzled him. " Strange," 
he wrote to Lord Canning, " that the incendiaries 
should never be detected. Every one is on the alert 

* That Sir Henry Barnard thouf^lit dian military system, and the causes 
much and wrote very sensibly of the of the prevailinj^ disaffection, 1 have 
Sepoy Armv, the defects of our In- ample evidence in letters before me. 

2o2 



564 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

April, 1S57. there ; but still no clue to trace the offenders." And, 
Umballah. ^^^{^ ^^^ the end of the month, " We have not been 
able to detect any of the incendiaries at Umballah. 
This appears to me extraordinary ; but it shows how 
close the combination is among the miscreants w^ho 
have recourse to this mode of revenging what they 
conceive to be their wrongs, and how great the dread 
of retaliation to any one who would dare to become 
an informer." It showed, too, how little power we 
had of penetrating beneath the surface, and how 
great was the mistrust of the English throughout all 
classes of the Native soldiery. Let what might be 
the hatred and dissension among themselves, a com- 
mon feeling still stronger closed their hearts and 
sealed their lips against their English officers. 
Events at Day after day this fact became more and more 

Meerut. apparent. To the most observant of our people it 
seemed at first that, although the ministers and de- 
pendents of the deposed Mahomedan ruler of Oude 
might have been insidiously employed in the corrup- 
tion of our Native soldiery, the alarm, and therefore 
the discontent among the Sepoys, w^as for the most 
part an emanation of Hindooism. The inquiries into 
the state of the Thirty-fourth Regiment at Barrack- 
pore had resulted in a belief that the Mahomedan 
and Sikh soldiers w^ere true to their salt ; and so 
strong was the impression that only the Hindoos of 
the disbanded Nineteenth were really disaffected, 
that, after the dispersion of the regiment, it was be- 
lieved that the whole history of the mutiny, which 
had ruined them, might be gathered from the Mus- 
sulman Sepoys. But, although a sagacious civil 
officer was put upon their track, and every effort 
was made to elicit the desired information, the at- 
tempt was altogether a failure. Whether these first 
impressions were right or w^rong, whether the mutiny 



FIRST MUTINY IN THE CAVALRY. 5i)5 

was, in its origin and inception, a Hindoo or a Ma- April, 1857. 
homedan movement, will hereafter be a subject of 
'iquiry. But, before the end of the month of April, 
it must have been apparent to Lord Canning that 
nothing was to be hoped from that antagonism of 
the Asiatic races, Avhich had ever been regarded as 
the main element of our strength and safety. Ma- 
homedans and Hindoos were plainly united against 
us. 

From an unexpected quarter there soon came proof 
of this union. As the new Enfield rifle had been the 
outward and visible cause of the great fear that had 
arisen in the minds of the soldiery, it was natural 
that the anxieties of the Government should, in the 
first instance, have been confined to the Native In- 
fantry. In the Infantry Regiments a very large 
majority of the men were Hindoos ; whilst in the 
Cavalry the Mahomedan element was proportion- 
ately much stronger.* But now there came from 
Meerut strange news to the effect that a Cavalry 
regiment had revolted. 

To this station many unquiet thoughts had been 
directed ; for it was one of the largest and most im- 
portant in the whole range of our Indian territories. 
There, troops of all arms, both European and Native, 
were assembled. There, the Head-Quarters of the 
Bengal Artillery were established. There, the Ord- 
nance Commissariat were diligently employed, in the 
Expense Magazine, on the manufacture of greased 
cartridges. There, the English Riflemen of the 
Sixtieth, not without some feelings of disgust, were 
using the unsavory things. More than once there had 

* Asarule, theMalmmedanswere ever, that in the Third Regiment of 

better horsemen and more adroit Regular Cavah-y, which led off the 

swordsmen than the Hindoos, and dance of death at Meerut, there 

therefore they made more service- were an unusual number of Brah- 

able troopers. It is stated, how- mins. 



5ij6 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTI^T. 

April, 1S57. been reports that the Sepoys had risen at Meerut , 
^^^^ ' and that the Europeans had been let loose against 
them. With vague but eager expectancy the Native 
regiments at all the large stations in Upper India 
were looking in that direction, as for a signal 
which they knew would soon be discerned. Men 
asked each other what was the news from Meerut, 
and looked into the Native newspapers for the sug- 
gestive heading ; for it was the cradle of all sorts of 
strange and disturbing stories. In this month of April 
its crowded Lines and busy Bazaars were stirred 
by indefinite apprehensions of something coming. 
Every day the excitement increased, for every day 
some new story, intended to confirm the popular 
belief in the base designs of the English, found its 
way into circulation. The emissary of evil, who, in 
some shape or other, was stalking across the countr\\ 
was at Meerut in the guise of a wandering Fakeer, 
or religious mendicant, riding on an elephant, with 
many followers. That he was greatly disturbing the 
minds of men was certain ; so the Police authorities 
ordered him to depart. He moved; but it was be- 
lieved that he went no farther than the Lines of one 
of the Native regiments.* 

In no place was the story of the greased cartridges 
discussed with greater eagerness than at Meerut ; in 

* Compare following passage in were moving about the country ap- 

tlie Meerut Narrative of Mr. Wil- peared at Meerut in April, ostensibly 

liams. Commissioner Pirst Division : as a fakeer, riding on an elephant 

"All the rumours by which the with followers, and having with him 

minds of tlie Native soldiers were horses and native carriages. The 

prepared for revolt, were indus- frequent visits of the men of the 

triously disseminated at Meerut, Native regiments to him attracted 

especially those regarding the use of attention, and he was ordered, 

polluting grease in the preparation of tlirough the pohce, to leave the 

the new cartridges, and the mixture place ; he apparently complied, but, 

of ground bones in flour, by which, it is said, he stayed some time in th-i? 

it was said, Government desired to Lines of the 20th Native Infantry 

destroy the religion of the people. — Unpublished Records. 
One of the many emissaries who 



THE THIRD CAVALRY. 5G7 

no place was there a more disturbing belief that this April, 1857. 
was a part of a great scheme for the defilement of 
he people. It was of little use to declare to them 
that not a single soldier would ever be required to 
use a cartridge greased by any one but himself, for 
the crreasino; of the cartrid^-es was in their estimation 
only one of many fraudulent devices, and every one 
believed that the dry cartridges contained the ob- 
noxious fat. So, in the beginning of the fourth week 
of April, the excitement, which for many weeks had 
been growing stronger and stronger, broke out into 
an act of open mutiny. The troopers of the Third 
Cavalry were the first to resist the orders of their 
officers. They had no new weapons ; no new ammu- 
nition. The only change introduced into their prac- 
tice was that which substituted the pinching or tear- 
ing off, for the biting off, the end of the cartridges 
which they used with their carbines. This change 
in the drill was to be explained to them on a parade 
of the skirmishers of the regiment, which was to be 
held on the morning of the 24th of April. On the 
preceding evening a report ran through canton- 
ments that the troopers would refuse to touch the 
cartridges. The parade was held, and of ninety 
men, to whom the ammunition was to have been 
served out, only five obeyed the orders of their 
officers. In vain Colonel Carmichael Smyth ex- 
plained to them that the change had been introduced 
from a kindly regard for their own scruples. They 
were dogged and obdurate, and would not touch the 
cartridges. So the parade was dismissed, and the 
eighty-five troopers of the Third were ordered for 
Court-martial. 

All this made it manifest to Lord Cannins; that The story of 
the worst suspicions were deeply rooted in the Sepoy bone?^^"^ 
Army; and though he at all times maintained a 



568 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

April, 1857. calm and cheerful demeanour, lie thought much and 
anxiously of the signs and symptoms of the troubled 
spirit that was abroad. There were many indications 
that these suspicions were not confined to the mili- 
tary classes, but were disquieting also the general 
community. Not only in Meerut, but also in many 
other parts of the country, there was a belief that 
the English designed to defile both Hindoos and 
Mahomedans, by polluting with unclean matter the 
daily food of the people. It has been shown that 
a suspicion of a similar character was abroad at the 
time of the Mutinv at Vellore.* Now the disturbino; 
rumour, cunningly circulated, took many portentous 
shapes. It was said that the ofiicers of the British 
Government, under command from the Company and 
the Queen, had mixed ground bones with the flour 
and the salt sold in the Bazaars ; that they had 
adulterated all the gheef with animal fat ; that bones 
had been burnt with the common sugar of the 
country ; and that not only bone-dust flour, but the 
flesh of cows and pigs, had been thrown into the wells 
to pollute the drinking water of the people. Of this 
. great imaginary scheme of contamination the matter 
of the greased cartridges was but a part, especially 
addressed to one class of the community. All classes, 
it was believed, were to be defiled at the same time ; 
and the story ran that the "burra sahibs," or great 
English lords, had commanded all the princes, nobles, 
landholders, merchants, and cultivators of the land, 
to feed together upon English bread. 

Of these preposterous fables, the one which made 
the strongest impression on the public mind was the 

* Ante, page 248. It was llien f This is the ordinary grease used 

said that the English had mixed the for cooking purposes Ihrougbout 

blood of cows and pigs with all the India, 
newly manufactured salt. 



THE BONE-DUST FLOUR. 569 

story of tlie bone-dust flour. That it was current in April, 1857. 
March at Barrackpore is certain.* In the early part 
of April, a circumstance occurred which proved that 
the panic had then spread to the Upper Provinces. 
It happened that flour having risen to an exceptionally 
high price at Cawnpore, certain dealers at Meerut 
chartered a number of Government boats to carry a 
large supply down the canal to the former place. 
When the first instalment arrived, and was ofi'ered for 
sale at a price considerably below that which had 
previously ruled in the Bazaars, it found a ready 
market ; but before the remainder reached Cawn- 
pore, a story had been circulated to the efl'ect that the 
grain had been ground in the canal mills, under Eu- 
ropean supervision, and that the dust of cows' bones 
had been mixed up with it, with the intention of 
destroying the caste of all who should eat it. Such 
a story as this, circulated in the Lines and the Mili- 
tary Bazaars of Cawnpore, at once stopped the sale 
of the Meerut flour. Not a Sepoy would touch it, 
not a person of any kind would purchase it, cheap 
as was the price at which it was obtainable in com- 
parison with all the other supplies in the market. 
Eapidly spread the alarm from one station to an- 
other, and as tidings came of the arrival of imaginary 
boat-loads or camel-loads of flour and bone-dust, men 
threw away the bread that they were eating, and be- 



* Tt was brought to the notice of as it was found. But History re- 
General Hearsey by a native anony- joices in the preservation of sucli 
mous letter, picked up at the gate of contemptible productions. I have 
Major Matthews, who commanded given it entire in the Appendix, 
the Forty-third. Tiie Major sent it to Tiiere are many such in my posses- 
Hearsey's staff, describing it as " sad sion, but this is the earliest in date, 
trash;" and Hearsey, in forwarding it and gives the most comprehensive 
to the Military Secretary, expressed account of the rumours circulated 
regret that the contemptible pro- by our enemies, 
duction had not been burnt as soon 



570 



OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 



Apvil, 1857. lieved themselves already defiled.* Whether, as some 
said, this was a trick of the Cawnpore grain mer- 
chants to keep up the price of flour, or whether the 
story had been set afloat under the same influences 
as those which had given so false a colouring to the 
accident of the greased cartridges, and had asso- 
ciated with all the other wild fictions of which I have 
spoken, cannot with certainty be declared. But, 
whatsoever the origin of the fable, it sunk deeply 
into men's minds, and fixed there more ineradicably 
than ever their belief in the stern resolution of the 
Government to destroy the caste of the people by 
fraudulently bringing, in one way or other, the un- 
clean thing to their lips. 

It fixed, too, more firmly than before in the mind 
of Lord Canning, the belief that a great fear was 
spreading itself among the people, and that there was 
more dano;er in such a feelino; than in a o-reat hatred. 
Thinking of this, he thought also of another strange 
story that had come to him from the North- West, 
and which even the most experienced men about him 
were incompetent to explain. From village to vil- 
lage, brought by one messenger and sent onward by 
another, passed a mysterious token in the shape of 
one of those flat cakes made from flour and water, 
and forming the common bread of the people, which, 
in their language, are called Chupatties. All that 
was known about it was, that a messenger appeared, 
gave the cake to the head man of one village, and re- 
quested him to despatch it onward to the next ; and 



* Colonel Baird Smith to Mr. of our stations, and Sepoys, private 

Colvin — Mr. Martin Guhbins to the servants, Zemindars at tending Court, 

same. " Once alarmed," wrote the have flung away their roti (bread) 

latter, "they drink in the greatest on hearing tliat five camel-loads of 

follies. Bone-dust attah alarm has bone-dust attah had readied the stu- 

takenhold of men's minds at several iion."— MS. Correspondence. 



STORY OF THE CHUPATTIES. 571 

tnat, in this way, it travelled from place to place ; no -'^P"^ 1S57. 
one refusing, no one doubting, few even questioning, 
in blind obedience to a necessity felt rather than 
understood. After a while, this practice became 
known to the functionaries of the English Govern- 
ment, who thought much of it, or thought little of 
it, according to their individual dispositions, and in- 
terpreted it, in divers ways, according to the light 
that was in them.* The greater number looked 
upon it as a signal of w^arning and preparation, de- 
signed to tell the people that something great and 
portentous was about to happen, and to prompt 
tnem to be ready for the crisis. One great autho- 
riry wi'ote to the Govern or -General that he had been 
toid that the chupatty was the symbol of men's food, 
and that its circulation was intended to alarm and to 
influence men's minds by indicating to them that 
their means of subsistence would be taken from 
them, and to tell them, therefore, to hold together. 
Others, laughing to scorn this notion of the fiery 
cross, saw in it only a common superstition of the 
country. It w^as said that it was no unwonted thing 
for a Hindoo, in Avhose family sickness had broken 
out, to institute this transmission of chupatties, in the 
belief that it would carry off the disease ; or for a 
community, when the cholera or other pestilence 
was raging, to betake themselves to a similar prac- 
tice. Then, again, it w^as believed by others that the 
cakes had been sent abroad by enemies of the British 
Government, for the purpose of attaching to their 
circulation another dangerous fiction, to the efi*ect 



* Mr. Ford, Collector of Goor- vin, who issued circular orders on 

gaon, first brought it to the notice the subject to all the local officers in 

of the Lieutenant-Governor of the charge of districts. 
North- Western Provinces, Mr. Col- 



572 



OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 



April, 1857. that there was bone-dust in them, and that the Eng- 
lish had resorted to this supplementary method of 
defiling the people. Some, too, surmised that, by a 
device sometimes used for other purposes,* seditious 
lette rs were in this manner forwarded from village to 
village, read by the village chief, again crusted over 
with flour, and sent on in the shape of a chupatty, 
to be broken by the next recipient. But whatsoever 
the real history of the movement, it had doubtless 
the effect of producing and keeping alive much 
popular excitement in the districts through whicli 
the cakes were transmitted ; and it may be said that 
its action was too widely diffused, and that it lasted 
for too long a time, to admit of a very ready adop- 
tion of the theory that it was of an accidental cha- 
racter, the growth only of domestic, or even of 
municipal, anxieties.f Some saw in it much mean- 
some saw none. Time has thrown no new 



mg; 



* In this manner communication 
was sometimes held with the in- 
mates of our gaols. See the " Re- 
velations of an Orderly," by Pauuch- 
kowree Khan : " Suppose a pri- 
soner is confined under the bayonet 
of Sepoys, he must be permitted to 
eat bread. The preparer of food is 
bribed, and a short note is put into 
a chupatty, or a sentence is written 
on a plate, and when the bread is 
taken up the prisoner reads what is 
written." 

t Tlie circulation of the chupatties 
commenced at the beginning of the 
year. " The year 1857," writes Cap- 
tain Keatinge, "opened in Nimar by 
a general distribution of small cakes, 
which were passed on from village to 
village. The same, I. am aware, has 
occurred all over Northern India, 
and has been spoken of as having 
been a signal for the disturbances 
which took place later in the year. 
At the time tliey appeared in Nimar, 
they were everywhere brought from 



the direction of Indore. That city 
was at the time afflicted with a 
severe visitation of cholera, and 
numbers of inhabitants died daily. 
It was at that time understood by 
the people in Nimar, and is still be- 
lieved, that the cakes of wheat were 
despatched from Indore after the 
perlbrmance over them of incanta- 
tions that would ensure tlie pesti- 
lence accompanying them. The cakes 
did not come straight from North 
to South, fur they were received at 
Bujencghur, more tlian half way 
between Indore and Gwalior, on the 
9th of Pebruar}-, but had been dis- 
tributed at Mundlaiser on the I2th 
of January. This habit of passing 
on holy and unholy things is not 
unknown at Nimar. When small- 
pox breaks out in a village, a goat 
is procured, a cocoa-nut tied to 
its neck, and it is taken by the 
chowkeedar to the first village on 
tlie road to Mundatta ; it is not 
allowed to enter the town, but is 



POLITICAL INTRIGUES. 



57B 



light upon it. Opinions still widely differ. And all April, 1857. 
that History can record with any certainty is, that 
the bearers of these strange missives went from place 
to place, and that ever as they went new excite- 
ments were engendered, and vague expectations were 
raised. 

That in all this there was something more than Political 
mere military disaffection was manifest to Lord '" "S^^s. 
Canning ; but neither he nor his confidential ad- 
visers could clearly discern what it was. He had a 
general conception that evil-minded men, with strong 
resentments to be gratified by the ruin of the British 
Government, were sending forth their emissaries ; but, 
with the exception of the ministers of the dethroned 
King of Oude, whom he had suspected from the first,* 



taken by a villager to the next 
hamlet, and so passed on without 
rest to its destination." This last 
is the sciipturally recorded scape- 
j^oat. With respect to the clnipatties, 
consult also the report of Major 
Erskine, Commissioner of the Saugor 
and Nerbudda territories : " So far 
back as January, 1857," he writes, 
"small wheaten cakes (chupatties) 
■were. passed in a most mysterious 
manner from village to village in 
most of the districts, and, although 
all took it as a signal that some- 
thing was coming, nobody in the 
division, I beheve, knew what it 
portended, or whence it came, and 
it appeared to have been little 
thought about except that in the 
money-market of Saugor it is said 
to have had some slight effect in 
bill transactions. 1 reported the 
matter to Government at the time, 
but even now it is a matter of doubt 
if the signal was understood by any 
one, or if it referred to the coming 
rebellion, though such is now the 
general opinion." I have thrown 
together in the Appendix some fur- 
ther facts and fancies illustrative of 
this interesting subject of inquiry. 



* In my mind there is no doubt 
of the activity, at this time, of the 
Oude people at Garden Reach. The 
Sepoys at Barrackpore were induced 
to believe that, if they broke away 
from the English harness, they would 
obtain more lucrative service under 
the restored kingship of Oude. T 
have before me some letters, origi- 
nal and translated, of a Jemadar of 
the Thirty-fourth Regiment, which 
contain numerous allusions to the 
Future of the Kind's service. Take 
the following : " The Second Grena- 
diers said, ill the beginning of April, 
*We will go to our homes sooner 
than bite the blank ammunition.' 
The regiments were unanimous in 
joining the King of Oude," " The 
Soubahdars of the Quarter-Guard 
said, * We have sided with the King 
of Oude, but nothing has come of 
it.' " " Ramshaee Lalla said, ' It 
would have been well for us.' " This 
also has its significance : " Soubah- 
dar Muddeh Khan, Sirdar Khan, and 
Ramshaee Lalla said, 'The Eering- 
hee Beteechoots' (a vile term of op- 
probrium) 'are unequalled in their 
want of faith. The King of Luck- 
now put down his arms, and the 



574 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

April, 1857. he could not individualise his suspicions. How was 
he to know, how was any Englishman, shut up all 
day long in his house, and having no more living 
intercourse with the people than if they were clay 
figures, to know what was passing beneath the sur- 
face of Native society ? If anything were learnt at 
that time to throAV light upon the sources of the 
great events that were to happen, it was by merest 
accident, and the full force of the revelation was 
rarely discernible at the time. It was remembered 
afterwards that, in the early part of this year, one 
man, a Mahratta by race, a Brahmin by caste, of 
whom something has already been recorded in this 
narrative, was disj^laying, in his movements, an un- 
wonted activity, which created surprise, but scarcely 
aroused suspicion. This man was Dundoo Punt, 
commonly known as the Njjia-Siihib, of Bhitoor — 
the adopted son of the Peishwah, B adie^_JBao. He 
was not given to distant journeyings ; indeed, he 
was seldom seen beyond the limits of his own estate. 
But in the early months of 1857, having visited 
Calpee, he made a journey to Delhi, and, a little 
later in the year, paid a visit to Lucknow. It was 
in the middle of April that he started on this last 
journey. On the 17th of that month, Mr. Morland, 
then one of the Agra Judges, who shortly after the 
Peishwah's death had been Commissioner at Bhitoor, 
and who had endeavoured to rescue from resumption 
a part of his pension, paid a visit to the Nana at that 

Government have given him no al- General Hearsey, sendiiif]^ on the 

lowance. We advised the Kini^ to correspondence to Government, said 

put down his arms. The treachery that there was "much method in 

of the Government is unrivalled.' " his supi)osed nmdness ;" and added, 

Colonel Wheler said that the vi^riter that "much important information 

of these letters appeared to be " af- on the whole cause and subject of 

fected in the head." It will be re- this 5i(!^/305^^ Cartridge Mutiny might 

membered that the Native officer he elicited from him." — MiS. Cone- 

who reported the coming massacre spondence. 
of Vellore was als" said to be mad. 



THE NANA SAHIB. 575 

place. The wily Mussulman Agent, Azim-ooUali Khan, ^m^> "^557. 
who had pleaded his cause in England, was with 
Dundoo Punt when the English gentleman was an- 
nounced, and they talked freely together, as friends 
talk, no suspicion on the one side, and no appearance of 
anything unwonted on the other. All was outwardly 
smooth and smiling. The Mahratta was as profuse 
as ever in his expressions of respect and esteem ; and 
when Morland took his departure, the brother ot 
Dundoo Punt told him that the Nana purposed to 
return the visit of the Sahib next day at Cawnpore. 
The next day happened to be Sunday, and Morland 
was anxious, therefore, to decline the visit ; but the 
Nana Sahib went to Cawnpore, and again sent Baba 
Bhut to the English gentleman to propose an inter- 
view. What he wished to say to the man who had 
been kind to him will now never be known, for 
Morland declined the meeting, on the plea that it 
was the Sabbath, and expressed regret that the 
Nana Sahib should have made the journey to no 
purpose. To this the Brahmin replied, that his 
brother was on his way to Lucknow to visit one 
of the Newabs. There was something in all this 
strange and surprising. An English nobleman, in 
the course of three or four months, might visit all 
the chief cities of Europe without any one taking 
heed of the occurrence. But the nobility of India 
are little given to travelling ; and the Nana Sahib 
had rarely gone beyond the limits of Bhitoor.* 

* A different statement has, I induced his adoptive father, Badjee 

know, been made and commonly ac- Rao, to eschew it, namely, that a 

cepted. It is the belief that the salute was not given to liim on 

Nana Sahib was frequently to be entering the cantonment. The per- 

seen at Cawnpore, riding or driving son generally known in Cawnpore 

on the Mall, and mixing freely with as the " Nana" was not Dundoo 

the European residents of the place. Punt, but Nana Nerain Rao, the 

But the truth is, he eschewed eldest son of the ex-Peishwah's 

Cawnpore, for the reason which chief adviser and manager, the Sou- 



576 



OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 



April, 1S57. That, within so short a time, he should make these 
three journeys, was a fact to excite speculation ; but 
lie was held to be a quiet, inoffensive person, good 
natured, perhaps somewhat dull, and manifestly not 
of that kind of humanity of which conspirators are 
made, so no political significance was attached to the 
fact. What likelihood was there, at that time, that such 
a man as Dundoo Punt, heavy and seemingly impas- 
sive, who had for some years quietly accepted his po- 
sition, and during that time done many acts of kind- 
ness and hospitality to the English gentlemen, should 
suddenly become a plotter against the State ? Had 
any one then said that it behoved the Government to 
mark the movements of that man, he would have 
been laughed to scorn as an alarmist. We never 
know in India how many are the waiters and the 
watchers ; we never know at what moment our 
enemies, sluggish in their hatreds as in all else, may 
exact the payment of old scores which we have thought 
were long ago forgotten. 

, So Dundoo Punt, Nana Sahib, passed on, about 
some business known to himself, utterly unknown to 
'•European functionaries, to Calpee, on the banks of 
• the Jumna, to the great imperial city of Delhi, and 
to Lucknow, the capital of Oude. In the last of 
these places, when the Nana arrived, Henry Law- 
rence was dihgently, with his whole good heart, 
striving to make right all that had gone wrong 
during the time of his predecessor. But again the 
handwriting on the wall traced those fatal words, 
" Too late." If he had but gone to Lucknow when 
he had first oflTered to go, how different would all 
. have been ! It was on the 18th of April that the 
Nana Sahib started on his journey to Lucknow. On 

bahdar Ramcliunder Punt, who, after familiarity with many of the prin- 
his master's death, resided at Cawn- cipal European residents, 
pore, and was on terms of social 



STATi: OF LUCKXOW. 577 

that day Henry Lawrence wrote a long letter to the April, ISc' 
Governor-General, telling him that he had discerned ^^^"°^^- 
sio^ns of dangerous coalitions between the re<rular 
Sepoy regiments, the Irregulars taken into our service 
from the old Oude Army, and the men of the Police 
battalions ; symptoms also of intrigues on foot among 
some of the chief people of the city. There Avere 
many elements of trouble ; and now they were be- 
ginning to develop themselves in a manner signifi- 
cant of a general outburst of popular discontent. 
" This city," wrote Henry Lawrence on that 18th of 
April, " is said to contain some six or seven hundred 
thousand souls, and does certainly contain many 
thousands (twenty thousand, I was told yesterday) of 
disbanded soldiers, and of hungry, nay starving, de- 
pendents of the late Government. This very morn- 
ing a clod was thrown at Mr. Ommaney (the Judicial 
Commissioner), and another struck Major Anderson 
(Chief Engineer) whilst in a buggy with myself. 
. . . . The improvements in the city here go on 
very fast — too fast and too roughly. Much discon- 
tent has been caused by demolition of buildings, and 
still more by threats of further similar measures ; 
also regarding the seizure of religious and other 
edifices, and plots of ground, as Huzool or Govern- 
ment property. I have visited many of these places 
and pacified parties, and prohibited any seiziu^e or 
demolition without competent authority. The Re- 
venue measures, though not as sweeping as repre- 
sented by the writer whose letter your Lordship sent 
me, have been unsatisfactory. The Talookhdars have, 
I fear, been hardly dealt with ; at least, in the Fyza-^ 
bad division some have lost half their villao'es, some 
have lost all" Such stated here, in the hurried out- 
line of a letter from the spot, to be dwelt upon more 

2p 



578 



OUTBREAK OF THE MUTI^T. 



April, 1S57. 
Luckuow. 



^J 



J 



t/ 



in detail hereafter, was the condition of affairs which, 
in the third week of April, the Nana Sahib found in 
Lucknow. He could have scarcely wished for any 
better materials from which to erect an edifice of re- 
bellion. 

By this Dundoo Punt, Nana Sahib — by all who 
were festerinsr with resentments ao^ainst the Eno^lish 
and malignantly biding their time, the annexation of 
Oude had been welcomed as a material aid to the 
success of their machinations. It was no sudden 
born of the accident of the greased car- 
ridges, that took the disappointed Brahmin and his 
lahomedan friend to Lucknow in the spring of this 
year of trouble. For months, for years indeed, ever 
since the failure of the mission to England had been 
apparent, they had been quietly spreading their net- 
work of intrigue all over the country. From one 
native Court to another native Court, from one ex- 
tremity to another of the great continent of India, the 
agents of the Nana Sahib J iad passed Avith overtures 
and iuAdtations, discreeth', perhaps mysteriously, 
worded, to Princes and Chiefs of different races and 
religions, but most hopefully of all to the Mahrattas. 
At the three great Mahratta families, the families of 
the Rajah of Sattarah, of the Peishwah, of the 
Boonsla, Lord Dalhousie had struck deadly blows. 
In the Southern Mahratta country, indeed, it seemed 
that Princes and Nobles were alike ripe for rebeUion. 
It was a significant fact that the agents of the great 
Sattarah and Poona families had been doing their 
master's work in England about the same time, that 
both had returned to India rank rebels, and that the 
first year of Lord Canning's administration found 
Rjjingo-Bapojee as active for evil in the South as 

mn-oollah was in the North ; both able and unscru- 



INTRIGUES OF THE NANA SAHIB. 



57i) 



pulous men, and hating the English with a deadlier April. 185? 
hatred for the very kindness that had been shown to ^^^^^'^^^^• 
them. But it was not until the crown had been set 
upon the annexations of Lord Dalhousie by the 
seizure of Oude, that the Nana Sahib and his accom- 
plices saw mvch prospect of success. That event was 
the turning-point of their career of intrigue. What 
had before been difficult was now made easy by this 
last act of English usurpation. Not only were the 
ministers of the King of Oude tampering with the 
troops at the Presidency, and sowing dangerous lies 
broad-cast over the length and breadth of the land, 
but such was the impression made by the last of 
our annexations, that men asked each other who was 
safe, and what use was there in fidelity^ when so 
faithful a friend and ally as the King of Oude was 
stripped of his dominions by the Government whom 
he had aided in its need. It is said that Princes and • 
Chiefs, who had held back, then came forward, and 
that the Nana Sahib began to receive answers to his 
appeals.* But whatsoever may have been its effect in 



(/ 



* By those wlio systematically re- 
ject Native evidence, all this may 
be rea-arded as nothing but unsub- 
stantial surmise. But there is no- 
thing in my mind more cleaily sub- 
stantiated than the complicity of the 
i^aaa ^Sahib in \^ id£i^i"ead iiitrjgues 
before the outbreako05e~niutiiiy. 
The" (TUttL'uri'tmL ~tesXmKmj'~^t~wit - 
nesses examined in parts of the 
country widely distant from each 
other takes this story altogether out 
of the regions of the conjecturah I 
speak only of the broad fact itself. 
AV'ith regard to the statement in the 
text, that the machinations of the 
Nana Sahib were much assisted by 
the annexation of Oude, I give the fol- 
iowing, qiiuyitum valeat, from tlie evi- 
dence of a Native emissary detained 
and examined in Mysore, in January, 

9 



1858. After giving alist of numerous 
princes and chiefs whom the Nana 
had addressed, this man said : " The 
Nana wrote at intervals, two or three 
months previous to tlie annexation of 
Oude. But at first he got no an- 
swers. Nobody had any hope. After 
tlie annexation he wrote still more, 
and then the Soukars of Lucknow 
joined in his views. Maun Singh, 
who is the Chief of the Poorbeah, or 
Poordusee, joined. Then the Sepoys 
began to make tqjwiz (plans) among 
themselves, and the Lucknow Sou- 
kars supported them. Until Oude 
was annexed. Nana Sahib did not get 
answers from any one ; but when 
that occurred, many began to take 
courage and to answer him. The 
plot among the Sepoys first took 
place— the discontent about the 

p 2 



,580 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

A?-i], 1857. remote places, it cannot be questioned that in the 
condition of Oude itself after annexation there ^vas 
that which must have gladdened the heart of every 
plotter against the State. Such men as Dundoo Punt 
and Azim-oollah Khan could not pass through the 
streets of Lucknow without clearly seeing what was 
coming. AVhat they saw and what they heard, 
indeed, pleased them so greatly, that they assumed a 
bold and swaggering demeanour, which attracted the 
attention of the English functionaries to whom they 
Avere introduced. For they made no secret of their 
visit; but wxnt about openly in the public streets, 
with numerous attendants, and even sought the pre- 
sence of the Commissioner. The Nana said that he 
had come only to see the sights of Lucknow ; so 
Henry Lawrence received him kindly, and ordered 
every attention to be shown, to him by the authorities 
of the city. But his sojourn in Lucknow was brief, 
and his departure sudden. He went without taking 
leave of the English functionaries, saying that busi- 
ness required his presence at Cawnpore. 

p^reased cartridges. Then answers one of the Lucknow Soukars." The 

began to pour in, Golab Siugli, of former part of this statement may be 

J'.immoo, was the first to send an readily accepted _: tlio latter must be 

ans'.vcr. Tie said that lie was ready received with caution. JTurtlier ex- 

with men, money, and arms, and he tracts from this man's evidence wilj 

sent money to Nana Sahib, throuo;h be found in the Appendix. 



THE MONTn OF JUT. , 581 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE MONTH fj.? JiL;\T — (riNKPt/iL fiUUYEY OP AFFATES — STATE OF rEELYKQ 
AT THE RIFLE DEPOTS — THE RISING STORM IN OUDE — THE REVOLT AT 
MEERUT— THE SEIZURE OP DELHI— MEASURES OF LORD CANNING— TUS 
CALL FOR SUCCOURS. 

The month of May, witli its iiery heat and glare, May, 'iS57 
and its arid dust-charged winds, found Lord Can- 
ning in Calcutta watching eagerly, but hopefully, the 
progress of events, and the signs and symptoms of 
the excitement engendered in men's minds by the 
great lie which had been so insidiously propagated 
among them. From the multitude of conflicting 
statements and opinions which reached him from dif- 
ferent quarters, it was difficult to extract the truth ; 
but taking a comprehensive view of all that was 
manifest to him, from the plains of Bengal to the 
hills of the Himalayah, he could not discern in those 
first days of May that the clouds were gathering 
around him denser and blacker than before. If there 
were any change, indeed, it was rather a change for 
the brighter and the better. At Barrackpore there 
had been no more overt acts of mutiny. The Native 
regiments were doing their duty, sullenly perhaps, 
but still quietly. At Dum-Dum the detachments in 
tbe Rifle depot, under the new system of drill, were 
proceeding to ball practice without any visible signs 
of discontent. It was hoped, indeed, that the troops in 



582 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

2lay, 1S57. the immediate neighbourhood of Calcutta were yield- 
ing to the explanations and assurances which had 
been given to them, and sloAvly returning to reason. 
At the Rifle depots also in the Upper Country the 
drill was quietly proceeding. At Sealkote, the detach- 
ments from the Native regiments in the Punjab, 
Regular and Irregular, were firing the new pieces 
without a murmur. Sir John Lawrence went to 
that station, at the beginning of the month, "to see 
the new School of Musketry, as well as to judge with 
respect to the feeling among the Sepoys;" and he 
wrote to Lord Canning that all were " highly pleased 
with the new musket, and quite ready to adopt it 
They already perceive how great an advantage it 
will give them in mountain warfare." The officers 
assured him that no bad feeling had been shown, and 
he himself " could perceive no hesitation or reluctance 
on the part of any of the Sepoys."* From Umballah, 
General Barnard wrote on the first day of the month, 
that he had reported to Head-Quarters that so far 
from any insubordinate feeling existing at that place, 
he had reason to be satisfied with tlie patience, zeal, 
and activity that the men had shown on the severe 
night-picket work necessitated by the incendiary 
fires. " I have no reason," he added, '' to accuse the 
Sepoy of causing these tires — no overt act has been 
elicited, and no instance of insubordination has oc- 
curred. The musket practice has been resumed with 
apparent good will and zeal. I have frequently at- 
tended it myself, and I will answer for it that no ill 
feeling exists in these detachments. "f 

Thus it was that, in the first days of May. there 

* Sir John Lawrence to Lord f Sir H. Barnard to Lord Can- 
Canning, Mav 4, ISoJ—MS. Corre- ning, May 1, l^ol.— MS. Cone" 
sjpondence. spondence. 



SYMnoMS or a lull. 583 

was apparent to the eyes of the Governor-General May, 1S57. 
something like a lull ; and it seemed that at the Rifle 
depots, which were the great central points of danger, 
the difficulty had been tided over. From Meerut, 
too, no fresh tidings of disturbance came. The men 
of the Third Cavalry were being tried by Court- 
martial ; and it did not appear that any of their 
comrades were about to follow their insubordinate 
example. There were circumstances that rendered 
it probable that tlie motives which had driven these 
men into mutiny were altogether of an exceptional 
character. So Lord Canning, in the early part of 
this month of Ma}^, was able to direct his thoughts 
to all parts of the country, and to fix them on many 
topics of Indian government and administration, 
as calmly and as philosophically as in the quietest 
of times. He was corresponding with Lord Elphin- 
stone on the subject of the Treaty with Persia and 
the Expenses of the War ; with Lieutenant-Governor 
Colvin on Education Grants and Female Schools, and 
the Delhi Succession — little thinkino; how that last 
question would soon settle itself; with Major David- 
son, the Resident at Hyderabad, about the recogni- 
tion of a successor to the Nizam (his Highness being 
nigh unto death from a surfeit of prawns) ; with Sir 
Richmond Shakespear, Resident at Baroda, on the 
Finances of the Guicowar ; and with Colonel Durand, 
the Governor- General's Agent at Indore, about the 
large amount of Native deposits in the Residency 
Treasury. Hi deed, the current business of Govern- 
ment was but little interrupted. There was no fear 
in Government House. 

But, althougli at this time the Governor-General 
was cheerful and hopeful, and believed that the 
clouds of trouble would soon, by God's providence, 



.084 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTLXY. 

May, 1557. be dlspGrsGcl, he had some especial causes of anxiety. 
The dawn of the month of May found the Thirty- 
fourth Regiment at Barrackpore still awaiting its 
sentence. The Jemadar of the Quarter-Guard, Issuree 
Pandy, had been hanged on the 22nd of April, in 
the presence of all the troops, at Barrackpore. He 
had confessed his guilt on the scaffold, and with his 
last breath had exhorted his comrades to be warned 
by his example.* It was believed that this public 
execution of a commissioned officer would liave a 
salutary effect upon the whole Native Army. But 
the punishment of one man, though that punishment 
were death, could not wipe out the offence of the 
reo^iment, or vindicate the authoritv of the Govern. 
ment. The g;reat defect of Lord Cannino^, as a ruler 
in troubled times, Avas an excess of conscientiousness. 
The processes by which he arrived at a resolution 
were slow, because at every stage some scruple of 
honesty arose to impede and obstruct his conclusions. 
On the score both of justice and of policy he doubted 
whether the prompt disbandment of the Thirty- 
fourth would be right. It was certain that some 
companies were true to their colours, and he did not 
clearly see that all the rest were faithless. He had 
caused a searching inquiry to be made into the con- 
dition of the regiment, and he had hoped, up to the 
end of the third week of April, that all the require- 

* There were many erroneous in this wretclied manner, or he may 

versions at- the time" of Issuree receive the same punishment." This 

Tandy's speech from the scaffold, is given on the authority of Colonel 

The words which he uttered, lite- Mitchell of the Nineteenth, who 

rally translated, were these: "Listen, brought the prisoner from the Quar- 

Behaudur Sepoys. In such a manner ter-Guard of the Eift.y-third to the 

do not let any one act! I have be- foot of the gallows, and whose own 

liaved in such a rascally way to the ini[)ressions were conlirmed by the 

Government, that I am about to re- three orderlies who accompanied 

ceive my just punishment. There- him. 
fore, let no Behaudur Sej)oy behave 



DISBANDMEXT OF THE TlimTY-FOURTII. 585 

mcnts of the case might be satisfied by the dismissal May, 1S57 
of some of the more patent offenders. But the weight 
of military authority was strongly in favour of dis- 
bandment. General Hearsey, at Barrackpore, was 
fully convinced that no measure short of this would 
produce the desired effect ; and General Anson wrote 
earnestly from Simlah urging the expediency of such 
a course. The whole question Avas fully and anxiously 
discussed in Council ; and at last, on the 30th of 
April, Lord Canning recorded a minute declaratory 
of his opinion that no penalty less general than dis- 
bandment " would meet the exigencies of the case, 
or be effectual as an example." But even then there 
were doubts with respect to the men who were to be 
exempted from punishment, and not until the 4th of 
May was the discussion exhausted and the order 
given for the disbandment of the regiment.* 

Two days afterwards, in the presence of all the Disbandment 
troops at Barrackpore, of the detachments from Dum- fou\-th. ^^*^ 
Dum, and of the Eighty -fourth (Queen's) from Chin- 
surah, the seven companies of the Thirty-fourth, who 
had witnessed the o-reat outrao^e of the 29th of March, 
were drawn up, before the sun had risen, to receive 
their sentence. There was to be no mitigation of 
their punishment, as in the case of the Nineteenth ; 
so when they laid down their arms, the uniforms 
which they had disgraced were stripped from their 
backs, and they were marched out of cantonments 
under an escort of Europeans. And thus a second 
time the number of the guilty Thirty-fourth was 
erased from the Army List ; and five hundred more 

* It is especially to be noted that should be exempted, as a faithful 

a q^uestion arose as to whether the servant, or, on account of later reve- 

Jemadar of the Mint-Guard, who lations, condemned as a traitor. The 

liad apprehended the men of the decision was ultimately in his favour. 
Second Grenadiers (ante, page 530), 



586 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

desperate men, principally Brahmins and Rajpoots, 
were cast adrift upon the world to vfork out their 
own schemes of vengeance. 
ide. In the quarter to which a large number of them 

made their way as the Nineteenth had made their 
way before them — in Oude, the signs of approaching 
trouble increased. To no place, from one end of 
India to another, did the mind of the Governor- 
General, in this conjuncture, turn, with more painful 
interest, than to this newly-annexed province, the 
nursery of the Bengal Army. Henry Lawrence's 
letters to the Governor-General were wholly silent 
on the subject of the Nana's visit to Lucknow. But 
they spoke of much that pressed heavily on his 
mind. Recognising so many causes of popular dis- 
content in Oude, and knowing well how large a por- 
tion of the Native Army was drawn from that pro- 
vince, he could not, at such a time, regard without 
much anxiety the demeanour of the Sepoys around 
him. There was one regiment at Lucknow, whose 
conduct, although it had been betrayed into no 
overt act of insubordination, was of a suspicious, 
almost of a threatening, character, and it seemed 
desirable thai; it should be removed from the pro- 
vince. There was no doubt that some of the 
chief people of the city were tampering with its 
alleoiance ; and much danoer mioht therefore be 
averted if it could be removed to another station 
beyond the limits of the pro\:.ice. The suggestion 
was made, and Canning responded to it, giving full 
authority to Henry Lawrence to move the tainted 
regiment to Meerut. " Let the Commander-in-Chief 
know," wrote the Governor-General, " if you find it 
necessary to send it away ; but do not wait for any 

further authority If you have regiments 

that arc really untrustworthy, there must be no deli- 



, MUTINY AT LUCKXOW. 587 

cacy in the matter." But before the letter sanction- May, 1857. 
ing his proposal had arrived, Henry Lawrence had 
thought long and deeply about the results of such a 
measure ; and on the 1st of May he wrote to Lord 
Canning, saying: "Unquestionably we should feel 
better without the Forty-eighth, but I do not feel 
confident that the feeling in the other regiments is 
materially better ; and there is little doubt that the 
Forty-eighth would not be improved by a move, 
which is an important point of consideration in the 
present general condition of the Army." He was 
right ; the removal of a single regiment could not 
benefit Oude, but it might do injury elsewhere by 
tainting other parts of the Army. 

That other components of the Oude force were Mutiny in Dk 
equally disaffected was presently apparent. On the j.^"^ ^ ^^^°"" 
2nd of May, Captain Carnegie, who was Magistrate 
of the city of Lucknow, and who had the superin- 
tendence of tlie Police — a man, described by his im- 
mediate superior as " prudent and active, though so 
quiet in manner, and implicitly to be relied upon" 
— reported to Henry Lawrence that there had been 
a strong demonstration against the cartridges in the 
Seventh Regiment of Oude LTegulars. At first he 
was fain to believe that the story might be exagge- 
rated ; but there was soon undeniable evidence that 
it was only too true. The regiment, which had been 
in the King's service, was posted at a distance of 
some seven miles from Lucknow. A fortnight before, 
the recruits of the regiment had commenced practice 
with ball-cartridge, and had done their duty without 
any manifestations of discontent. But by the end of 
the month it ^vas clear that the great fear, which was 
travelling about the country, had taken possession of 
their minds, and that they were on the very verge of 
revolt. Whether they had been wrought upon by 



588 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

emissaries from the city, or whether any of the dis- 
banded men of the Nineteenth had, by this time^ 
found their way to Liicknow, is matter only of con- 
jecture ;* but as the month of May dawned upon 
them, they were ripe for rebelUon — not only them- 
selves prepared to resist, but eager to incite others to 
resistance. They had written a letter to the men of 
the Forty-eighth, urging them to rise for their reli- 
gion ; and no soothing explanations from their of- 
ficers could induce them to shake off the mistrust 
which had fastened upon them. On the second day 
of the month the Brigadier rode out with his Staff 
to the Lines of the Seventh, and found them " as 
obstinate as ])ossible with regard to the cartridges, "f 
Returning at nightfall to Lucknow, he wrote at once 
to Lawrence, telling him the state of the regiment, 
and adding, " I think myself that this affair has 
^•^'\y 3. been a long time brewing." The next morningj 
brought with it no consolation. The Seventh were 
in a worse state than before. They had been sullen 
and obstinate on the preceding day. Now in a state 

* It has been stated that both the Lord Canuiug, wlio, in a minute 

Nineteenth and Thirty-fourth were written on the 10th of May, said: 

stationed at Lucknow at the time of " It appears that tlie revised in- 

annexation ; and it was believed that structions for the plaioon exercise, 

they were there first infected with by which the biting of the cartridge 

rebellion. Henry Lawrence wrote is dispensed with, had not come into 

that he had ascertained that in tiie operation at Lucknow. Explana- 

Nineteenth there must have beeu tion of this should be asked." But 

nearly seven hundred Oude men. the time for explanation was past. 

By tills time, they liad mostly found It was ascertained, however, that 

their way back to their native pro- the new drill instructions were sent 

vince. to the Oude Irregular force in the 

t The official report said that middle of April, 
the regiment "refused to bite the | So difficult is the attainment of 
cartridges when ordered by its own perfect accuracy in an historical nar- 
othcers, and again by the Brigadier." rative, that even Mr. Gubbins, whose 
]low it happened that, after the work on the Mutinies of Oude is the 
change introduced into the drill, the best and salest authority extant, 
Sepoys at Lucknow were ordered to says that these events, which he wit- 
bite the carti'idge at all, it is impos- ]iessed himself, happened on Sunday, 
eible to say. This did not escape the lOtli of May, 



DISARMING OF THE SEVENTH. 5S9 

of fevcrisli excitement, violent, desperate, they as- May, 1S57 
sinned a menacing attitude, and talked openly of ^ ^" 
murdering their officers. It was obvious that a crisis 
was approaching, and that no time was to be lost ; 
so Henry Lawrence, when he heard that the regi- 
ment was in this defiant and dangerous state, deter- 
mined at once to disarm, and, if resisted, to destroy 
it. On that evening he moved up an overwhelming 
force of all arms to the parade-ground of the Seventh. 
The day was far spent when he commenced the 
march. " It was a ticklish matter," he wrote to Mr. 
Colvin, ''taking the Forty-eighth down on Sunday 
night; but I thought that they were safer in our 
company than behind in cantonments. We had to 
pass for two miles through the city ; indeed. Her 
Majesty's Thirty-second had four miles of it. I there- 
fore hesitated as to moving after ; but the moon was 
in its third quarter; and the first blow is everything. 
So off we started ; and concentrated from four 
points, accomplishing the seven miles in about three 
hours."* 

The moon had risen, bright in an unclouded sky, 
on that Sabbath evening, when Henry Lawrence, 
accompanied by his Staff, appeared with the Brigade 
before the Lines of the Seventh. The regiment was 
drawn up on parade, in a state of vague uncertainty 
and bewilderment, not knowing what would come of 
this strange nocturnal assembly. But when they 
saw the Europeans, the Cavalry and the guns, taking 
irround in their front and on tlieir flanks, the Native 
regiments being so placed as to destroy all hope of 
their aiding their comrades, the mutineers knew that 
their game was up, and that there would be death in 

* Sir Henry Lawrence to Mr. Colvin, Lucknow, May 6, 1S57. — 
M/S» Correspondence. 



590 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

further resistance. What might then have happened 
if the course of events had not been determined by 
an accident, cannot be distinctly declared. The mu- 
tinous regiment had obeyed the word of command, 
and some of the men had expressed contrition ; but 
it happened that, by some mistake, an artilleryman 
lighted a port-fire. The guns were pointed towards 
the mutineers, and though Law^rence and his Staff 
w^ere posted betAveen them and the Artillery, and 
would probably have been swept away by the first 
round, the Sepoys of the guilty regiment believed 
that the battery was about to open upon them. A 
panic then seized the Seventh. First one man, then 
another, broke away from his comrades and fled, 
throwing down his arms as he went in the over- 
whelming consternation of the moment ; and pre- 
sently great gaps appeared in the Line, and only a 
remnant of the regiment Avas left to obey the orders 
of the English officer. To these men, whilst the 
Cavalry went in pursuit of the fugitives, Henry Law- 
rence rode up ; and as they broke into exclamations 
of " Jye Coompanee Behaudur Ko !" — '^ Victory to 
the great Lord Company !" — ordered them to lay 
down their arms, and to strip off their accoutrements. 
They obeyed without hesitation ; and, an hour after 
midnight, the Brigade had returned to Lucknow, 
carrvins: with it all the arms of the Seventh, and 
escortinsf, under o-uards of the same force, the men 
who had so lately borne them. In the critical state 
of the other Native regiments, it was not thought 
wise to divide the Europeans. 

Next day Henry Lawrence wrote to the Governor- 
General, saying, "The coiijj is stated to have had 
great effect in the city. But people go so far as to 
tell me that the Forty-eighth last night abused the 



FIRES IN LUCKNOW. 591 

Seventh for running away, and said, that if they May, 1857 
had stood, the Forty-eighth would not have fired. I 
don't believe one quarter of these reports." But, al- 
though there is always, in seasons of great popular 
excitement, a vast amount of exaggeration afloat, and 
Henry Lawrence, therefore, received with caution the 
stories that were brought to him, he was not one to 
disregard the signs of the times, and to close his eyes 
to the dangers that were surrounding him. As time 
advanced, these signs increased in significance. Some 
fifty of the ringleaders of the Seventh Irregulars 
had been seized and confined, and a Court of In- 
quiry had been assembled to investigate the causes of 
the outbreak in that re2:iment. But little or nothin^: 
had been elicited. As at Umballah, and other places, 
the mouths of the Sepoys were sealed. They might 
contend among themselves, but in their reticence, 
when the English sought to probe their discontents, 
they acted as one man. Words were not forthcoming, 
but there was one form of expression, well known to 
the Native soldiery in times of trouble, to which they 
betook themselves, as they had before betaken them- 
selves elsewhere, and thus gave utterance to the strong 
feelings within them. On the 7th of May, the Lines 
of the Forty-eighth were burnt down. The fire com- 
menced in the hut of the Soubahdar who had given 
up the seditious letter addressed by the Seventh Irre- 
gulars to the men of his regiment. There could be 
no doubt that it was the work of an incendiary. On 
the following day, Lawrence visited the scene of the 
conflagration, and found the men outwardly civil and 
respectful in their demeanour, but heavy and down- 
cast at the thought of their loss of property. It was 
not easy to read the state of feeling which then ex- 
isted in the Oude Army, so vague and varied was it ; 



592 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

but if any man could have rightly discerned if, 
Henry Lawrence was that man. For he had free in- 
tercourse with those who were most likely to be its 
exponents, and had the gift, so rare among our 
countrymen, of inspiring confidence in the breasts of 
the people. After much communing with others and 
Avith himself, he came to the conclusion that the 
strongest feeling that held possession of the Sepoy's 
mind was a great fear, that this fear had long been 
growing upon him, and that it had only culminated 
in his belief in the story of the greased cartridges.* 

Of one of these conversations a record has been left 
in Lawrence's handwriting. It is so significant of 
the great fear that was then dominating the Army, 
that I give the passage as it stands. " I had a con- 
versation," he wrote to Lord Canning, on the 9th of 
May, " Avith a Jemadar of the Oude Artillery for more 
than an hour, and w^as startled by the dogged per- 
sistence of the man, a Brahmin of about forty years 
of age, of excellent character, in the belief that for ten 
3^ears past Government has been engaged in measures 
for the forcible, or rather fraudulent conversion of all 
the Natives. His argument was, that as such was the 
case, and that as we had made our w^ay through 
India, won Bhurtpore, - Lahore, &c., by fraud, so 
might it be possible that w^e mixed bone-dust wdth 
the grain sold to the Hindoos. When I told him of 
our power in Europe, how the Russian war had 
quadrupled our Army in a year, and in another it 
could, if necessary, have been interminably increased, 

* One of the earliest indicatior.s by tlie Sepoys, and was believed to 

of this alarm appeared at Lucknow, be a deliberate scheme to pollute 

when an Assistaiit-Surfjeon in the them. Soon afterwards the house of 

Hospital of the Fortv-eiohth inad- the doctor was burnt to the j^rounJ 

rertently put a phial of medicine to by the Sepoys of his regiment, 
^is ',ips to test it. This was seen 



SY^IPTOMS OF DISCONTENT. 593 

and that in the same way, in six months, any re- May, 1857. 
quired number of Europeans could be brought to 
India, and that, therefore, we are not at the mercy 
of the Sepoys, he replied that he knew that we had 
plenty of men and money, but that Europeans are 
expensive, and that, therefore, we wished to take 
Hindoos to sea to conquer the world for us. On my 
remarking that the Sepoy, though a good soldier on 
shore is a bad one at sea, by reason of his poor food, 
' That is just it,' was the rejoinder. ' You want us 
all to eat what you like that we may be stronger, and 
go everywhere.' He often repeated, ' I tell you what 
everybody says.' But when I replied, 'Fools and 
traitors may say so, but honest and sensible men can- 
not think so,' he would not say that he himself did or 
did not believe, but said, ' I tell you they are like 
sheep; the leading one tumbles down, and all the 
rest roll over him.' Such a man is very dangerous. 
He has his full faculties, is a Brahmin, has served us 
twenty years, knows our strength and our weakness, 
and hates us thoroughly. It may be that he is only 
more honest than his neighbours, but he is not the 
less dangerous. On one only point did he give us 
credit. I told him that in the year 1846, I had 
rescued a hundred and fifty Native children, left by 
our army in Caubul, and that instead of making them 
Christians, I had restored them to their relations and 
friends. ' Yes,' he replied, ' I remember well. I was 
at Lahore.' On the other hand, he told me of our 
making Christians of children purchased during 
famines. I have spoken to many others, of all ranks, 
during the last fortnight; most give us credit for 
good intentions ; but here is a soldier of our own, 
selected for promotion over the heads of others, 
holding opinions that must make him at heart a 

2 Q 



594 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

M^j, 1857. traitor." On the same day he wrote, in a similar 
strain, to Mr. Colvin, concluding with a significant 
hint to look well after the safety of the Forts in 
Upper India.* 

If these letters from the Chief Commissioner of 
Oude had been read when written, they might have 
suggested grave thoughts of impending danger ; but 
Avhen they reached their destinations, they came only 
as commentaries upon the past, faint and feeble as 
seen by the glaring light of terrible realities. The 
Governor- General and his colleagues in the Supreme 
Council were discussing the conduct of the mutinous 
Oude regiment, and the measure of punishment 
which should be meted out to it. On the 10th of 
May Lord Canning and Mr. Dorin recorded minutes 
on the subject. The Governor-General declared for 
disbandment. Eoused to a vigorous expression of 
opinion by this last manifestation of a grooving evil, 
the senior member of Council wrote — and wrote well 
— " The sooner this epidemic of mutiny is put a stop 
to the better. Mild measures won't do it. A severe 

example is wanted I am convinced that 

timely severity will be leniency in the long run." 
On the same day, General Low recorded a minute, 
in which he expressed an opinion that " probably the 
main body of the regiment, in refusing to bite the 
cartridge, did so refuse, not from any feeling of dis- 
loyalty or disaffection towards the Government or 
their officers, but from an unfeigned and sincere 
dread that the act of biting them would involve a 
serious injury to their caste." On the 11th, Mr. 

* In the letter to Mr. Colvin, Sir ceal not only that he and all others 

Henry Lawrence says that the Je- saw no absurdity in the ground-bones 

madar " went over all our anti- atta belief, but that he considered 

Hindoo acts of tlie last ten years, in- we were quite up to such a dodge.' 

eluding Gaol-Messing, the General- — MS, Correspondence. 
Service Oath, &c., and did not con- 



THE OUTBREAK AT MEERUT. . 595 

Grant and Mr. Peacock placed on record tlieir opi- May, 1857. 
nions, that it might be better to wait for fuller in- 
formation before issuing the final orders of Govern- 
ment. On the 12tL. the office-boxes were ao-ain 
passing from house to house; but with the papers 
then circulated, there went one, small in size, scanty 
in words, but, although perhaps scarcely appreciated 
at the time, of tremendous significance. "It is to 
be hoped," wrote Mr. Dorin, "that the news from 
Meerut (in the telegraphic message from Agra in this 
box) is not true." But it was true ; yet, with all its 
terrors, only a small part of the truth. 

The little paper, then, on that 12th of May, tra- The outbrenK 
veiling from house to house in the office-box, was ^J^^^Jo^^^s^^jr 
a telegraphic message from Lieutenant-Governor 
Colvin, announcing to Lord Canning that the great 
military station of Meerut was in a blaze, that the 
Cavalry had risen in a body, and that every Euro- 
pean they had met had been slain by the insurgents. 
There was something terribly significant in the very 
form of this message. The Government at Agra had 
received no official tidings of the events that had oc- 
curred at Meerut. But a lady at the former place, 
who had been about to pay a visit to her friends at 
Meerut, had received a message from her niece, who 
was sister of the postmaster there, warning her not 
to attempt the journey, as the Cavalry had risen.* 

* The following were the words find near the Lines. If aunt intends 

of the message : "7l/«y 11, 1857. — starting to-morrow evening,, please 

Last night, at nine o'clock, a tele- detain her from doing so, as the van 

graph message was received here bj has been prevented from leaving the 

a lady from her niece, sister of the station.' No later message has been 

postmaster at Meerut, to the follow- received, and the communication by 

ing effect : ' The Cavalry have risen, telegram has been interrupted ; how, 

setting fire to their own houses and not known. Any intelligence which 

several officers' houses, besides hav- may reach will be sent on imme- 

ing killed and wounded all Euro- diately." — Published Correspondence. 

pean officers and soldiers they could Parliamentary Papers. 

2q2 



596 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

May, 1S57. This was tlie last message despatched. Before the 
authorities could send intelligence of what had hap- 
pened, the telegraph-wires were cut by the insur- 
gents. 
The week of The news, therefore, which now reached Agra, 

e egrams. ^^^ ^^^^ thence communicated to Calcutta, was of a 
vague, fragmentary character. Scattered facts welled 
up from uncertain sources, and were passed on from 
one station to another, suggestive rather than expres- 
sive, always indicating something more terrible in the 
background than the truth actually revealed. Not 
till some time afterwards was the whole truth appa- 
rent to the Governor-General, and therefore not 
now do I fill up the outlines of the story. The 
week that followed the 12th of May was a week of 
telegrams. The electric wires were continually flash- 
ing pregnant messages from North to South, and from 
South to North. That the Sepoys at Meernt had 
risen, was certain from the first. Then news came 
that they held some part of the road between Meerut 
and Delhi. Then, little by little, it transpired that 
the Meerut mutineers had made their way in a body 
to the Imperial City, and that the Delhi regiments 
had fraternised with them. A messa^^fe from A2:ra, 
despatched on the 14th, stated, on the authority of a 
letter from the King of Delhi, that the town and fort 
and his OAvn person were in possession of the insur- 
gents ; and it was added that Fraser, the Commis- 
sioner, and many other English gentlemen and ladies, 
had been murdered. Then, at last, it became appa- 
rent that the King himself had cast in his lot with 
the insurgents, that the rebel standard had been 
hoisted in the palace of the Mogul, that Englishmen 
and Englishwomen had been ruthlessly massacred in 
the streets of the city, and that the mutiny of a few 



THE SEIZURE OF DELHI. 597 

regiments, by thus concentring at Delhi, was begin- May, 1857. 
ning to simulate a national rebellion. 

Never since, a century before, the foundation of our 
great Indian Empire had been laid by the conquest of 
Bengal, had such tidings as these been brought to 
the council-chamber of the English ruler. The little 
cloud no bigger than a man's hand, which had risen 
in the first month of the new year, and had been 
growing in its density and darkness until it had over- 
shadowed the heavens, was now discharging its tem- 
pestuous terrors upon us. There was little before 
the eyes of Lord Canning but the one naked fact of . 
the junction of the Meerut and Delhi troops, and the | ^ 
proclamation of the restored empire of the Mogul. 
With a feeling of wondering anxiety he awaited, 
all through that terrible week in May, the details 
which seemed as though they would never come, and 
the explanations of all that seemed so inexplicable to 
him. Most of all, he marvelled what our people had 
been doing, or not doing in this conjuncture, that 
such a post as Delhi, scarcely equalled in military, 
wholly unequalled in political importance, should thus 
in an hour have been wrested from their grasp. It 
seemed incredible that with a regiment of British 
Cavalry at Meerut, and the largest body of Artillery 
in the country gathered there at its head-quarters, 
such a catastrophe as this should have occurred. Was 
there no one, he asked, to do with the Carabineers 
and the Horse Artillery what Gillespie, half a century 
before had done, with his Dragoons and galloper- 
guns ? But if such were the result in places where 
our English officers had Cavalry and Artillery to aid 
them, how would it fare with them at stations where 
no such help was to be had ? There was no hope 
now that the conflagration would not spread from 



598 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

Mav, 1857. cantonment to cantonment ; no hope now that the 

whole country would not soon be in a blaze. 
Measures of So Canning arose, and with his still, calm face, 
ning. confronted the dire calamity. A braver heart than 

his never beat in a human breast. Happy was it for 
the nation that in him, to whom its honour was con- 
fided in that conjuncture, there was a resolute man- 
liood of the finest, most enduring temper. Many 
thoughts pressed upon him, but dominant over all 
was a strong sense of the paramount duty of main- 
taining before all men a serene aspect and a confident 
demeanour. There was great work to be done, 
nothing less than the salvation of an empire ; and 
with a solemn sense of his responsibility, he girded 
himself up for the conflict, knowing in hoAV great 
a measure the deliverance of his countrymen de- 
pended, under God's good providence, upon their 
faith in his constancy and courage. He saw clearly 
that there was a tremendous danger, and he knew 
that the resources immediately at his command were 
wholly insufficient to enable him to cope with it; 
but even those who were nearest to his person never 
saw him quail for a moment, as he calculated the 
means and appliances of defence that could at once 
be brought into action, and those which might be 
summoned from a distance. 

It was no time for lamentation ; else he might have 
lamented that India, by a series of adverse circum- 
stances, had been so stripped of European troops that 
now the whole country, with the exception of the 
frontier province of the Punjab, was lying naked and 
defenceless, without means of raising any barriers of 
resistance against the flood of rebellion that was 
pouring over Hindostan. He had lifted up his voice 
against the system, which placed it in the power 



SOURCES OF CONSOLATION* 599 

of England, by giving to India either too mucli May, 1857 
or too little of its manhood, to sacrifice the interests 
of the dependency.* He had resisted, only a little 
time before, an attempt to carry off some of the few 
English regiments at his disposal, to take a part in 
certain military operiitions against the Government 
of China, with which India had no concern. It had 
cost him much to send so many regiments to Persia ; 
but that was a call to which he had been bound to 
respond, and happily now the emergency was past. 
All that he had said by way of warning had been 
more than verified by the event ; but it was a time 
for looking forward, not for looking back, so he 
began to reckon up his available succours, and forth- 
with to summon them to the capital. 

In the midst of all his tribulation there were some 
sources of unspeakable comfort. Whilst the clouds 
were thickening above him, before the great out- 
burst, he had learnt with joy and gratitude that the 
war with Persia had been brought to a close. Outram 
had done his work rapidly and well. I cannot now 
pause to speak of his successes. What he did on the 
shores of the Persian Gulf must be narrated in an- 
other place. It is enough to say that Persia, alarmed 
by our demonstrations on the coast, and anticipating 
an advance into the interior of the country, thought 
that negotiation was better than war, acceded to our 
demands, and concluded, at Paris, a treaty with the 
British Government. The expedition which had gone 

* "The interests of India," he liere for the purpose of meeting 

wrote on April 22nd, " do not always exigencies elsewhere. Such a dimi- 

make themselves heard in England, nution was made in 1854 by with- 

when other important matters are holding two regiments which have 

uppermost; and I am opposed to not yet been given, although six 

putting into the hands of the Go- regiments have been sent out of 

vernment at home an increased India to Persia.*' — ATS. Correspond" 

power to diminish our main strength ence of Lord Canning, 



600 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

M:.y, 1857. forth from Bombay, was, therefore, returning to that 
Presidency; and a word from the Governor- Gene- 
ral would summon it, as fast as steam could bring 
it, to his aid. This was his first thought, when 
the seizure of Delhi confirmed all his worst appre- 
hensions of the perilous want of European troops. 
Then, from these Persian succours, he turned with joy 
and gratitude not less profound, to the thought that 
English troops were speeding to China ; that the 
arrogance and insolence of the Chinese Government 
having provoked our chastisement, an expedition had 
been fitted out under the conduct of a civil and a 
military chief, and was then, perhaps, at the very 
point of its journey at which it might most readily 
be wrested from its original purpose, and diverted 
into another and mere necessitous channel. Rightly 
taking the measure of the two exigencies, and never 
doubting for a moment what the great interests of 
the nation demanded in that conjuncture, he pre- 
sently determined to call these troops to his aid. The 
chastisement of China could wait ; the salvation of 
India could not ;* and so he resolved, even at the 
risk of frustratino; the cherished desims of the Go- 
vernment in England, to call upon Elgin and Ash- 
burnham to suspend their operations, and to send 
him the present help that he so much needed. It 



* I did not tliink, when I wrote stopped at Singapore. Ych may 

these words, that I had done more wait ; but Bengal, with its stretch 

ihan express the natural feeling in of seven hundred and fifty miles 

Lord Canning's breast at that time; from Barrackpore to Agra, guarded 

but I have since found that he gave by nothing but the 10th Queen's, 

utterance almost to the very words : cannot wait, if the flame should 

"I have sent an officer," he wrote to spread. And who shallsay that it 

the Commander-in-Chief, " to Galle will not ? No precaution against 

by the mail to meet Ashburnham, such a contingency can be too 

and I hope Elgin, with an earnest re- great."— j1/>y. Correspondence o/Lor"^ 

quest for the first use of the regi- Canning. 
nients bound to China, if they can be 



THE CALL FOR SUCCOLRS. 601 

was a great responsibility, but he took it without a May, 1857 
moment's hesitation on himself ; and he thanked 
God, from the very depths of his heart, that by a 
providential dispensation this succour, in the very 
crisis of his necessities, had been placed within his 
reach. 

There were thus, in the peculiar circumstances of 
the moment, some sources of consolation, some good 
promise of relief over and above that which was to 
be sought in the normal condition of the empire 
under his charge. But it would take time to gather 
up the strength of these Persian and Chinese expe- 
ditions, and there were some available European 
troops more nearly at hand. It was another happy 
accident that at this time the Eighty -fourth Regiment, 
which had been summoned from Pegu in March, was 
still in the neighbourhood of Calcutta. The long- 
delayed disbandment of the guilty companies of the 
Thirty-fourth had not been carried into effect before 
the 6th of May ; and the regiment had been de- 
tained until after the execution of the sentence. It 
seemed then that there was no further necessity for 
its presence in Bengal, but the arrangements for its 
return to Pegu were still incomplete, when the disas- 
trous tidings from Upper India came to dissipate all 
thought of its departure. From the quarter whence 
it had come another Eno^lish reoiment mio-ht be 
drawn. The Thirty-fifth was stationed partly at 
Rangoon, partly at Moulmein ; and a steamer was de- 
spatched to gather up the detachments and to bring 
them with all speed to Calcutta. At the same time, 
the telegraph carried to Madras a requisition to hold 
the Forty-third Foot and the Madras Fusiliers ready 
for immediate embarkation ; and a trusted officer 
was sent on board the mail-steamer to Ceylon, with 



602 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

May, 1S57. an urgent request to the Governor to send him all 
the European troops he could spare. 

Whilst thus every effort was strained to bring Eu- 
ropean troops from the southern and eastern coasts, 
the Governor-General was intent also on the organisa- 
tion of measures for the concentration of the strength 
already at his disposal upon the points most exposed 
to danger. With this object, every available river- 
steamer was taken up for the conveyance of troops 
to the Upper Provinces, and the quicker but more 
limited means of locomotion afforded by wheeled car- 
riages was resorted to for the conveyance of small 
detachments into the interior. But it was not, in 
the crisis of this first peril, from the South, but from 
the North, that the stream of conquest was to be 
poured down upon the great centre of rebellion. 
It was not to be doubted that General Anson, whom 
the news of the rising at Meerut and the seizure of 
Delhi must have reached at Simlah as soon as it 
reached Lord Canning at Calcutta, was doing all that 
could be done to despatch troops to the seat of the 
revolt. The telegraph, therefore, expressed only the 
confidence of Government that the Commander-in- 
Chief was bringing down to the plains the European 
regiments on the hills. But the main reliance of the 
Governor-General in this extremity was upon the 
military resources of the Punjab. Though all the 
rest of the empire was denuded of European troops, 
there was no lack of this material strength in the 
great frontier province conquered from the Sikhs. 
Moreover, it was believed that the Sikhs themselves 
would be eager to follow their English commanders 
to the siege and pillage of the reno^vned city of the 
Moguls. So, whilst a message went to Kurrachee, in 
Scinde, directing the Commissioner to send an Eng- 
lish regiment to the Punjab to replace any that it 



MEASURES OF DEFENCE. 603 

might be found necessary to despatcli from that pro- May, 1S57. 
vince to the Lower Provinces, another went to Mr. 
Colvin, at Agra, saying, " Send word as quickly as 
possible to Sir John Lawrence that he is to send 
down such of the Punjab regiments and European 
regiments as he can safely spare. Every exertion 
must be made to regain Delhi, Every hour is of 
importance. General Hewitt has been ordered to 
press this on the Commander-in-Chief. If you find 
it necessary, you may apply, in the Govern or- Gene- 
ral's name, to the Rajah of Pateeala and the Rajah 
of Jheend for troops." And he added, with that 
union of kindliness and sagacity which made him at 
all times liberal of his encouragement to his Lieute- 
nants, " I thank you sincerely for what you have so 
admirably done, and for your stout heart."* The 
praise, too, was well deserved. Colvin, at that time, 
had done all that could be done to help others at a 
distance, and to maintain the confidence of those 
around him, and he had strenuously exerted himself 
to forward to the Governor- General, by telegraph 
and by letter, all the tidings that had made their way 
to Agra.f " I have fairly taken upon myself," he 
wrote to Lord Canning on the 15th of May, "the 
position of Commander-in-Chief here. The ar- 
rangements are now on the point of completion, and 
our position may be regarded as safe. There has 
been a thorough co-operation and the most excellent 

* In a letter to Mr. Vernon Smith praise." — MS. Correspondence of Lord 

of about the same date, Lord Can- Canning. 

ning says : " South of Delhi, Colvin f The importance of this service, 

at Agra is enpjaced in keeping- the at a time when communication both 

roads quiet, collecting troops from by Post and Telegraph was so greatly 

Gwalior (Scindiah has come forward interrupted, can hardly be over-esti- 

lojally), and encouraging his own mated. The Commander-in-Chief's 

native garrison to fidelity. He is letters of the 14th and 16tli of May 

confident of keeping them straight, did not reach Calcutta before the 

and he deserves to succeed. His 7th of June, 
courage and judgment are beyond 



604 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

May, 1857. spirit amongst us. Scindiah and Bhiirtpore will he 
heartily with us against the new dynasty of the 
House of Timour. I shall rouse the Rajpoot States 
to arrest the flight of the mutineers westward, when 
they are driven out of Delhi. The horrible murders, 
you will see, have been chiefly by Mahomedan 
troopers of the Third Cavalry. There must be a fit 
and fearful expiation for such atrocities." 

But for this fit and fearful expiation Lord Canning 
knew too well that the time had not yet come. The 
struggle now was for bare life. For this he had 
done all that could be done, with the scanty means 
at his own disposal. "The two points to which I 
am straining," he wrote to the Indian Minister at 
home, " are the hastening of the expulsion of the 
rebels from Delhi, and the collection of Europeans 
here to be pushed up the country." But not a day 
was to be lost in summoning that ulterior aid, by 
which not only was the safety of the empire to be 
secured, but the honour of the nation vindicated by 
the infliction of just retribution upon our enemies. 
The succours from Bombay he was sure to obtain ; 
and there was something exhilarating in the thought, 
at a time when India had need of all her heroes, that 
Outram would come with them. How difl'erent 
would it have been if those regiments had been still 
Arrest of tlie engaged in the Persian Gulf! But he could not cal- 
tion"^ ^^"^ culate with the same amount of certainty upon the 
succours from the Eastern seas ; he could not be 
certain that Lord Elgin would respond to his appeal. 
All that he could do was to throw the whole earnest- 
ness of his nature into that appeal, and to take upon 
himself the full responsibility of the diversion. So 
he wrote officially, as the Govern or- General of India, 
to Lord Elgin, and he wTote privately to him as an 



ARREST OF THE CHINA EXPEDITION. 605 

old companion and friend. In the public letter, after May, is 5 7. 
setting forth in emphatic language the dangers by 
which our empire in India was surrounded, he con- 
tinued : " I place the matter briefly before your Lord- 
ship ; but I hope clearly enough to enable you to 
come to a ready decision. I will add, that I am 
anxious to bear the whole responsibility of all the 
consequences of turning aside the troops from China 
to India. But I beg your Lordship to believe that, 
in saying this, I am not influenced by any thought 
that whatever may be the course for which your 
Lordship's wise judgment shall decide, you will need 
any help from me in vindicating it to her Majesty's 
Government." 

More earnest and emphatic still was his private May 19, 1S5 7. 
letter ; not a word of it should be omitted : " My 
dear Elgin, — I wish I could give you a more cheerful 
and acceptable greeting than you will find in the 
letter by which this is accompanied. As it is, you 
mil not bless me for it, but the case which I have 
before me here is clear and strong. Our hold of 
Bengal and the Upper Provinces depends upon the 
turn of a word — a look. An indiscreet act or irri- 
tating phrase from a foolish commanding officer at 
the head of a mutinous or disafl'ected company, 
may, whilst the present condition of things at Delhi 
lasts, lead to a general rising of the Native troops in 
the Lower Provinces, where we have no European 
strength, and where an army in rebellion would have 
everything its own way for weeks and months to 
come. We have seen within the last few days what 
that way would be. I cannot shut my eyes to the 
danger, or to the urgent necessity under which I lie, 
to collect every European that can carry arms and 
aid to the Government of India in the event of such 



606 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

nXay, 1857. a crisis. I do not want aid to put down the Meerut 
and Delhi rebels ; that will be done easily, as soon as 
the European troops can converge upon Delhi, but 
not sooner. Meanwhile, every hour of delay — un- 
avoidable delay — is an encouragement to the dis- 
affected troops in other parts ; and if any one of the 
unwatched regiments on this side of Agra should 
take heart and give the word, there is not a fort, or 
cantonment, or station in the plains of the Ganges 
that would not be in their hands in a fortnight. It 
would be exactly the same in Oude. No help that 
you could give me would make us safe against this, 
because it cannot arrive in time. The critical mo- 
ments are now, and for the next ten or twelve days to 
come. If we pass through them without a spread of 
the outbreak, I believe all will go well. If we do not, 
the consequences will be so frightful, that any neglect 
to obtain any possible accession of strength whereby 
to shorten the duration of the reign of terror which 
will ensue, would be a crime. If you send me troops, 
they shall not be kept one hour longer than is abso- 
,^„ ^ Intel V needed. If you come with them yourself, vou 

MS. Corre- " / ?? 

sjjondence. shall be most heartily welcome." 

With this letter went another to General Ashburn- 
ham, who commanded the troops of the China expe- 
dition ; and the steamer, which carried the bearer of 
these important missives to Galle, bore also letters 
from the Governor- General to the Chairman of the 
Court of Directors and the President of the Board 
of Control, calling upon them immediately to send 
out reinforcements from England. '^Now let me 
beg your attention and support," he wrote to Mr. 
Mangles, 'Ho a proposal which goes to you by the 
mail for the immediate raising of three European 
regiments for Bengal. No sane man will doubt that 



MEASURES OF MORAL FORCE. 607 

Hiuch of increase to our European force is wanted, May, Vjb? 
and that the want should be supplied with as little 
delay as possible is obvious from the present expo- 
sure of our weak points. 1 do not ask for an aug- 
mentation to the established number of Queen's 
troops, because for permanent purposes I much prefer 
an addition to the Company's Army ; and for the 
exigencies of the moment no reinforcement, except 
that of the China regiments, would avail. But I do 
beg that you will move the Government to make up 
the complement of Queen's troops, irrespectively of 
those which now or hereafter may come to us from 
China. Do not let the supply of the missing regi- ■ 

ments depend upon the turn of affairs in China, but 
let the gap be filled up at once."* In the same 
strain he wrote to Mr. Vernon Smith, looking rather 
to any aid that might be sent him from England, as 
a means of preventing the recurrence of like disasters 
in the future, than of combating those which had 
already arisen. 

Whilst the first efi'orts of the Governor-General Moral force 
were thus directed towards the pressing duty of ex- 
tinguishing, by sheer animal strength, the fires that 
had been kindled in Upper India, he was endeavour- 
ing also to prevent by moral means the flames from 
spreading to parts of the country not yet in a blaze. 
It was plain that a great fear, born of a terrible mis- 
apprehension, was driving the soldiery to madness. 
Might not something, then, be done — might not some 
authoritative declaration be put forth by Govern- 
ment, solemn and irresistible in its denials of the im- 
puted treachery, to pacify men's minds, and to cast 
out from them the foul suspicions which were turn- 
ing loyal soldiers into rebels and murderers? It 

* Lord Canning to Mr. Mangles, May 19, 1857. — MS. Correspmdence, 



608 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

May, 1S57. was true that they had been told this before by the 
Governor- General, by the Commander-m- Chief, by 
Generals of Division, and Regimental Commandants ; 
but these appeals had been of local character and 
limited influence, and it was thought that something 
might yet be done by a general Proclamation ad- 
dressed to the whole Army, and distributed through- 
out the country. It was not doubted, that whatso- 
ever might have been the external agencies employed 
to keep alive this perilous excitement, there was at 
the bottom of it, in the breasts of the Sepoys, a 
deeply-rooted fear for the sanctity of their religion 
and the purity of their caste. If they could once be 
persuaded to believe that the British Government 
had never meditated any injury or offence to the re- 
ligious or social prejudices of the people, there might 
be a return to quietude and to reason. It was wise, 
at least, to make one more trial. So a Proclamation 
was issued, setting forth that the Governor-General 
knew that endeavours had been made to persuade 
Hindoos and Mussulmans, both soldiers and civil sub- 
jects, that their religion was openly as well as secretly 
threatened by acts of the Government, who were be- 
lieved to be seeking by various ways to entrap them 
into loss of caste for purposes of their own ; but that 
they had never yet deceived their subjects, and they 
now, therefore, called upon all men to refuse their 
belief to the seditious lies of designing traitors, who 
were leading good men to their ruin. Translated 
into the vernacular, this Proclamation was sent to 
the military authorities to be distributed among the 
soldiery in all parts of the country, whilst the words 
of it were telegraphed to the Lieutenant-Governor at 
Agra, with emphatic instructions to " disseminate it 
in every town, village, bazaar, and serai." "It is 



REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS, G09 

for the people as well as for the troops." It was yet May, 1S57 
hoped that it might bear the good fruit of a return 
to order and tranquillity.* 

At the same time, it appeared tc the Governor- 
General to be in the highest degree important to arm 
the military authorities with new powers both for the 
prompt reward of good and loyal soldiers, and the 
prompt punishment of mutineers. The first might 
be done by a simple order of the Government. The 
latter required the interposition of the Legislature. 
So an act was passed to facilitate the trial and punish- May 16. 
ment of offences against the articles of war for the 
Native Army, by which commanding officers of Divi- 
sions, Brigades, and Stations, were authorised to as- 
semble general and other Courts-martial, and to pro- 
ceed to carry sentence into effect without reference 
to Head-Quarters. In such an emergency as had 
then arisen. Centralisation could not stand its ground. 
So whilst incn^ased power was thus given to com- 
manding officers to overavv-e rebellion, increased 
power to encourage loyalty and good conduct was 
delegated to them and to certain high civil and poli- 
tical functionaries. They were empowered to pro- 
mote Native soldiers and non-commissioned officers 
on the scene of their good deeds, and to confer upon 

* It has been often said that this the mutiny in the Madras Army, It 

Proclamation, which will be found is, however, very doubtful whether 

in the Appendix, ought to have been such manifestofis have any effect 

issued at an earlier period. Colonel upon the Native mind, when once 

Birch advised the Governor-General, any popular belief of the intentions 

when the excited state of the Native of Government has taken fast hold 

soldiery first became apparent, to of it. 1 have already observed, that 

issue a proclamation of this kind, those who entertain a conviction 

and Lord Canning afterwards frankly that the Government have formed a 

expressed his regret that he had not deliberate design to trick the people 

taken the advice of his military se- out of their rehgion, are not likely to 

cretary. On turning back to page find any difficulty in believing that 

243, the reader will perceive that a the issue of a lying proclamation is 

similar delay in issuing a sedative a part of the plot, 
proclamation occurred in 1806, after 

2k 



610 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

May, 1857. them tlie " Order of Merit,"* " in order that the re- 
ward for eminent gallantry, loyalty, and good con- 
duct might be prompt, and might be conferred on 
the soldier in the sight of his comrades." But no 
proclamations and general orders — ^nothing that the 
Legislature could decree or the Executive Govern- 
ment publish — no words that men could utter, in 
that extremity, could avail to arrest the fury of the 
storm that was bursting over their head. It was too 
late for words, for none would hear. It was left to 
the English only to strike. 

Thus Canning did all that could be done, and 
waited for the issue — waited, fearfully and hopefully, 
for tidings of new disasters in one direction, and of 
coming succours from another. As he thus waited 
and watched, and pondered new details of the great 
rising, which every day added something to the 
clearness and completeness of the story, there were 
times when he felt in his inmost heart that there 
were no better resources than a few brave hearts 
and a few strong heads upon whose courage and 
coolness he could rely. It must be said, sorrowfully, 
and I would fain not say it, but History admits of no 
such reservations, that Lord Canning felt bitterly 
that, with some few honourable exceptions, the Eng- 
lish officers at the Presidency were not giving him 
the moral support which, in such a crisis, would have 
been so grateful and refreshing to him, and for which 
truly he had a right to look. It is impossible to 
describe his mortification. Where he had hoped to 
see strength he saw only weakness. Men whom he 
thought to see sustaining and encouraging others by 

* Authority in this latter respect Western Provinces, and to tlie Cliief 
was confined to the Lieutenant- Commissioners in Oude and the 
Governor of Bengal and the North- Punjab. 



DANGEROUS ALARMISTS. 611 

tlieir own resolute bearing and their cheerfulness of May, I8f.7, 
speech, went about from place to place infecting their 
friends with their own despondency, and chilling the 
hearts which they should have warmed by their ex- 
ample. Such a spectacle as this was even more 
painful than the tidings of disaster and death which 
came huddling in from all parts of the country. 
No one knew better, and no one more freely acknow- 
ledged that the men of whom he complained were 
" brave enough with swords by their sides." They 
would have faced death for their country's good with 
the courage of heroes and the constancy of martyrs ; 
but strong as they would have been in deeds, they 
were weak in words, and they went about as pro- 
phets of evil, giving free utterance to all their 
gloomiest anticipations, and thus spreading through 
all the strata of English society at the capital the 
alarm which a more confident demeanour in the 
upper places might have arrested. And so strong 
was Lord Canning's sense of the evil that had arisen, 
and that might arise from this want of reserve, that 
he wrote specially to the authorities in England to 
receive with caution the stories that were likely to be 
sent home in the private letters which the mail was 
about to carry from Calcutta. 

But the shame with which he beheld the failure of HarHs and 
some of his countrymen at Calcutta, made him turn ^ "i-sione. 
with the greater pride and the greater confidence 
towards those who were nobly seconding his efibrts 
from a distance. The Governors of Madras and of 
Bombay, Harris and Elphinstone, had responded to 
his appeals, and without any selfish thoughts of their 
own wants, any heed of dangerous contingencies at 
home, were sending him the succours he so much 
needed ; and he was profoundly grateful for their 

2 11 2 



G12 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

May, 1857. aid. The promptitude with which they responded to 
the call for help was something almost marvellous. 
The electric telegraph might fail us in some parts, but 
in others it did its work well. On the 18th of May, 
Canning knew that the Madras Fusiliers were already 
embarking, and had thanked Harris by telegraph for 
his " great expedition." On the 22nd he learnt that 
the first instalment of the troops from Persia had 
reached Bombay, and that a steamer had already 
started for Calcutta with a wing of the Sixty-fourth 
Queen's. The fire-ship was doing its work as well as 
the lightning-post. 
The Law- But although there was to the Governor-General 

icnces. great consolation in the thought that he would lack 

no material or moral support that Harris and Elphin- 
stone could give him, it was, in a conjuncture so im- 
minent, to the individual characters of men actually 
confronting the dangers which threatened the empire, 
that he looked with the most eager anxiety. And 
there were no points to which he turned his eyes with 
a keener interest than to those two great provinces, 
the history of the annexation of which I have written 
in the early part of this book, the great provinces of 
the Punjab and of Oude. It was from Oude that so 
large a part of the Bengal Army had been drawn ; 
it was in Oude, the last of our acquisitions, that the 
animosities and resentments born of the great revo- 
lution we had accomplished Avere festeriDg most 
freshly ; it was in Oude that we had to contend 
with the reviving energies of a dynasty scarcely yet 
extinct, and an aristocrac}^ in the first throes of its 
humiliation. All this Lord Canning distinctly saw. 
It was in the Punjab that all external dangers were 
to be encountered ; it was from the Punjab that Delhi 
was to be recovered. There was consolation in the 



THE LAWRENCES. 613 

tliouglit that only a few months before the good May, 1857 
offices of Dost Mahomed had been purchased in the 
manner most likely to secm^e his neutrality. But 
death might, any day, remove the old Ameer from 
the scene ; there would, in such a case, be internal 
convulsions, out of which would probably arise an 
invasion of our frontier by one contending faction 
or another: and, therefore, much as troops were 
needed below, a still greater danger might be in- 
curred by weakening the force on the frontier. In 
other parts of the country there might be merely a 
military mutiny; but in Oude and the Punjab the 
Government was threatened with the horrors of a po- 
pular rebellion, and the embarrassments of a foreign 
war. 

But if there were much trouble and anxiety in 
these thoughts, they had their attendant consolations. 
Let what might happen in Oude and the Punjab, the 
Lawrences Vv^ere there. The Governor- General had 
abundant faith in them both ; faith in their courage, 
their constancy, their capacity for command ; but, 
most of all, he trusted them because they coveted 
responsibility. It is only from an innate sense of 
strength that this desire proceeds ; only in obedience 
to the unerring voice of Nature that strong men press 
forward to grasp what weak men shrink from pos- 
sessing. Knowing this, when, on the 16th of May, 
Henry Lawrence telegraphed to the Governor-Ge- 
neral, " Give me plenary military power in Oude ; 
I will not use it unnecessarily," not a moment was 
lost in flashing back the encouraging answer, " You 
have full military powers. The Governor- General 
will support you in everything that you think ne- 
cessary." 

With John Lawrence it was less easy to commu- 



614 OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 

Maj, 1857. nicate. A short time before tlie outbreak of the 
mutiny, the Chief Commissioner of the Punjab, 
whose health had been sorely tried by incessant work, 
had proposed to the Govern or- General to occupy a 
part of the approaching hot weather in a tour 
through Cashmere, but Lord Canning, on political 
grounds, had discouraged the proposal ; for Gholab 
Singh lay dying, and it was believed that such a visit 
to the dominions of the Maharajah would be asso- 
ciated in men's minds with some ulterior project of 
their annexation. John Lawrence, therefore, had 
happily not gone to Cashmere. When the news of 
the outbreak at Meerut reached the Punjab he was, 
on his way to the Murree Hills, at Rawul-Pindee ; 
and thence, having first telegraphed to them both, he 
wrote, on the 13th of May, to the Governor- General 
and the Commander-in-Chief, Nine days afterwards 
Lord Canning received the missive which had been 
addressed to him, together with a copy of the Commis- 
sioner's earnest appeal to Anson to be up and doing. 
In the former, Lawrence urged upon the Governor- 
General the expediency of raising for immediate ser- 
vice a large body of Sikh Irregulars. "Our European 
force in India," he wrote, "is so small, that it may 
gradually be worn down and destroyed. It is of the 
highest importance, therefore, that we should increase 
our Irregular troops. ... In the event of an emer- 
gency, I should like to have power to raise as far as 
one thousand Horse; I will not do this unless abso- 
lutely necessary." Five days before this letter had 
reached Calcutta, Lord Canning had telegraphed his 
consent to the proposal, adding, " You will be sup- 
ported in every measure that you think necessary for 
safety." He was unstinting in his expressions of 
confidence to those who deserved it. 



SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. 615 

Those were days when the best men stood upon the May, 1S57. 
least ceremony, and if they had a suggestion to offer 
to Government, offered it with the full assurance 
that they were doing their duty, and would not be 
charged with presumption. So General Hearsey, 
when he learnt the news that had come from Meerut 
and Delhi, had written to the Military Secretary to 
urge the Government to call for troops from Madras 
and Bombay and the Persian Gulf, and to arrest 
the China expedition. So Henry Lawrence had 
telegraphed to the Governor-General to get every 
available European " from China, Ceylon, and else- 
where, also all the Goorkhas from the Hills." So 
Patrick Grant, the Commander-in-Chief at Madras, 
had telegraphed to him to send a smft steamer at 
once to intercept the China expedition ;* and John 
Lawrence had sent a message setting forth these and 

* There has been some discussion, forward on to you the whole of the 
I believe, respeetinf^ the quarter troops intended for China. Whether 
whence the suggestion to intercept China is coerced now, or months 
the China troops first emanated, hence, is of no moment. The moral 
I can see no reason to think that effect of such a force being brought 
Lord Canning required any prompt- to the spot would be incalculable, 
ing. But if the question is to be and be regarded as something mira- 
solved by reference to a priority of culous and supernatural." At what 
recorded date, it is, firstly, to Gene- precise moment Lord Canning first 
ral Hearsey, and secondly to Sir determined to arrest the China ex- 
Henry Lawrence, that the merit is pedition, is not apparent on the face 
to be assigned. On the 15th of May, of the records; but on the 18th he 
General Hearsey wrote to Colonel telegraphed to Agra: "I hope to 
Birch, saying: "Send steamers to catch the regiments on their way to 
meet and bring the European troops China." During the week imme- 
now on their way to China (Hong- diately following the outbreak at 
Kong) to Calcutta. Do not delay Meerut, Lord Canning scarcely re- 
doing this." On the 16th of May, sorted to the post-office at all. The 
Henry Lawrence telegraphed to Lord only letter that I can find is one to 
Canning: " Get every European you General Anson, dated the 15th, in 
can from China, Ceylon, and else- which he does not mention the in- 
where." On the 17th, Sir Patrick tended arrest of the China troops; 
Grant sent his message, more detailed but at that time he had received no 
and emphatic : " I most earnestly re- detailed account of events at Meerut 
commendthedespatchto Singapore of and Delhi, and scarcely knew the 
the swiftest steamer obtainable, with extent of the evil with which he had 
an epa-nest request to Lord Elgin to to contend. 



(ilO OUTBKEAK OF THE MUTDsT. 

otlic^r means of meeting the crisis. For all these 
suggestions Lord Canning was grateful; but it was 
with much satisfaction, perhaps with some pride, that 
when the detailed plans of the Chief Commissioner 
of the Punjab were laid before him, he sent back a 
message, through the Lieutenant-Governor of Agra, 
saying, " Every precaution which your message sug- 
gests has been taken long ago." 

Then, every effort made, and every precaution 
taken to save alike the Christian people and the great 
empire committed to his care, there was an interval 
of reflection ; and, Avith a feeling of solemn w^onder, 
Canning dwelt upon the causes of all this tremen- 
dous excitement, and asked himself whether it could 
be only a military^mntiny that he was combating. 
It did not seem as thouo-h the orio^in of such a com- 
motion Avere to be found only in the unaided in- 
stincts of the soldiery. It might be that the acti- 
vities then discernible were purely military activi- 
ties, but it did not follow that external influences 
had not been at Avork to produce the state of mind 
that was developing such terrible results. There 
were even then some daAvning apprehensions that, 
with the best possible intentions, grave mistakes might 
have been committed in past years, and that the tree 
of benignant error Avas noAV bearing bitter fruit. He 
thought over all that had been done by his great 
predecessor ; the countries that had been annexed to 
the British Empire, the poAverful interests that had 
suffered so grievously by our domination, the mani- 
fold encroachments, material and moral, of English 
muscle and English mind. Not at first did he per- 
ceive all that Avas afterAA^ards made clear to him, for 
at the time of Avhich I am noAv Avriting there Avere 
many breaks in the great chain of postal and. tele- 



MUTINY OR REBELLION ? Gil 

graphic communication, and it was not easy to form Mav, 1857. 
a right conception of the actual situation of affairs in 
the Upper Provinces. jBut he soon ceased to speak 
of the mutiny, and called it a "rebellion" — a "re- 1 ^ 
volt." Early in the year, he had felt disposed to 
attach some importance to the idea of political causes, 
but, as he wrote on more than one occasion, " not 
much."* Now his uncertainty upon this point began 
to disappear, and he wrote to the Indian Minister at 
home that he had not a doubt that the rebellion had 
been fomented " by Brahmins on religious pretences, 
and by others for political motives. "t He saw, in- 
deed, that for some years preceding the outbreak the 
English in India, moved by the strong faith that was 
in them, had striven, with a somewhat intemperate 
zeal, to assimilate all things to their own modes of 
thought, and that the Old Man had risen against the 
New, and resented his ceaseless innovations. To this 
pass had the self-assertions of the national character 
brought us. The Indian Empire was in flames. But, 
with a proud and noble confidence. Canning felt that 
this great national character which had raised the 
conflagration would, by God's blessing, ere long 
trample it out. Even those whose despondency had 
so pained him would, he knew, when called upon to 
act, belie the weakness of their words by the bravery 
of their deeds. Looking into the future, he saw the 
fire spreading ; he saw the heathen raging furiously 
against him, and a great army, trained in our own 

* See note, ante, page 550. a proclamation, which goes to you 

■j- Writing also to the Chairman herewith, has been issued with a 

of the Court of Directors (Mr. E,oss view of arresting the eviL But 

Mangles), Lord Canning said : *' I political animosity goes for some- 

liave learnt unmistakably that the thin^ among the causes, though it is 

apprehension of some attempt upon not, in my opinion, a chief one.'* — 

Caste is growing stronger, or at May 19, 1857. — MS. Correspond* 

least is more sedulously spread, ence. 
Mr. Colvin has found the same : and 



ei3 OUTBilEAK OF THi. MUTINY. 

Maj, IS 57. schools of warfare, turning against us the lessons we 
had taught them, stimulated by the Priesthood, en- 
couraged, perhaps aided, by the nobles of the land, 
and with all the resources of the country at their 
command; but seeing this, he saw also something 



beyond, grand in the distance ; he saw the manh 
cf England going oui to meet it. 



APPENDIX. 



CIVIL PEIVILEGES OF THE SEPOYS 

[The following is the memorandum to which reference is 
made at page 256 :] 

" By the regulations in force for the administration of Civil 
Justice, the Coiuts were prohibited from corresponding by 
letter with parties in suits before them, or from receiving 
pleadings or other applications in such cases except from the 
parties or their authorised representatives. All causes were 
required to be heard in the order in which they stood on the 
file of the Court, and the laws which required the use of 
stamped paper in judicial proceedings were very strict, smd 
for a length of time of universal application. 

" In all these respects a great change was made in the year 
1816 in favour of the Bengal Sepoy. 

"The regulation passed in that year made no change in 
respect of claims originating in loans granted by a Native 
officer or Sepoy, or in pecuniary transactions of a commercial 
nature ; but in all other respects the position of the Native 
soldier, as a party to a suit in a Court of Civil Justice, was 
materially improved. 

" If a Native soldier was desirous of mstituting a suit in any 
Court, he had only to inform his commanding officer of his 
intention, and to execute a deed authorising any member of 
his family to appear and act for him. This document was to 



620 APPENDIX. 

be sent by post by tlie commanding officer to tlie Judge of 
the Court having jurisdiction in the matter, who was then re- 
quired to take the necessary steps for giving information to 
the party appointed to act for the applicant, and to afford 
every facility for carrying on the cause. In like j7)anner, if 
the Sepoy was the defendant in a case, the usual notice was 
to be served upon him through his commanding officer, and 
similar facilities were to be afforded to him in defending as in 
prosecuting a case. If the Sepoy himself obtained furlough 
for the purpose of instituting or defending a suit, he carried 
with him a letter from his commanding officer to the Judge, 
who was then requireri to hear th.^ ca?e without reference to 
its order on the file, and to pass judgment in it with as little 
delay as possible. 

"No stamps were to be required, and if judgment went 
against the Sepoy, and any land or rent property belonging 
to him was attached in execution of the judgment, the Court 
was required to postpone the sale of it for such period as 
might appear reasonable for the purpose of affording the 
Native soldier an opportunity of discharging the amount ad- 
judged against him. 

" In like manner, if any estate belonging to a Native soldier 
became liable to sale for the recovery of an arrear of revenue, 
information of the same w^as to be given to him through his 
commanding officer, and every indulgence was to be shown to 
liim before the last step of selling the estate was taken. 

" By the same regulation, the sub-treasurer at the Presi- 
dency, the collectors of land revenue, and the several pay- 
masters in the Presidency of Fort William, including the pay- 
masters serving beyond the territories of the East India Com- 
pany, were authorised to grant bills payable h'c sight without 
deduction of any kind, and at the usual rate of exchange, on 
any other treasmy, for any sums which might be paid into 
their respective treasuries on account of Native officers or 
soldiers, who might be desirous of remitting money from one 
part of the country to another." — MS, Memorandum. 



APPENDIX. 



621 



CASTE AND KACE IN THE SEPOY ARMY. 

[The following statements, referred to at page 330, are 
taken from the Appendix to the Report of the Royal Com- 
mission on the organisation of the Indian Army. It will be 
observed that the Bengal reports relate only to the remnant 
of the Sepoy Army after the mutiny :] 



ExTKACTS from the Official lleturn showing the Number, Caste, and 
Country of the Native Officers and Soldiers of each Regiment, Regular 
and Irregular, of each Presidency, confined to Regiments borne on the 
Returns of eacli Army respectively; so far as can be stated from the 
Records in this House. — East India House, Sept. 1858. 

BENGAL. 

Native Infantry, 7 Regiments, viz. : 21st, 31st, 47th, G5th, 66th, 70th, 

and 73rd. 



Native OrncEES. 

Caste. 

Maliomedans 25 

Brahmins 52 

Rajpoots 39 

Hindus of inferior descrip- 
tion 23 



139 



NON-COMMISSIONED, RaNK AND 

File. 
Caste. 

Mahomedans 1,170 

Brahmins 1,878 

Kajpoots 2,637 

Hindus of Inferior descrip- 
tion 2,057 

Sikhs and Punjaubees 54 



7,796 



IiiREGULAPv AND LocAL Infantey, 12 Regiments, viz. : Regiment of Khelat- 
i-Ghilzie, Regiment of Eerozepore, Regiment of Loodianah, Simoor 
Battalion, Keraaon Battalion, Nusseree Battalion, Hill Rangers, Assam 
Light Infantry Battalion, Mhairwarrah Battalion, Sylhet Light Infantry 
Battalion, Arracan Battalion, and Shekhawattee Battalion. 



Native Officers. 

Caste. 

Mahomedans 38 

Brahmins 23 

Rajpoots 59 

Hindus of inferior descrip- 
tion 43 

Sikhs 17 

Hill men 16 

Mughs 6 

Burmese 1 

Munniporees 1 



204 



Non-Commissioned, Rank 
File. 
Caste. 

Mahomedans 

Brahmins 

Rajpoots 

Hindus of inferior descrip- 
tion ......*. 

Sikhs 

Hill men ,.... 

Mughs 

Burmese 

Munniporees 

Jhats 



AND 



1,18b 

849 

2,711 

2,247 



309 
112 
705 
6 
167 
48 



10,339 



622 



APPENDIX. 



MADRAS. 

Native Cavalliy, 7 Regiments. 



Native Officers. 

Caste. 

Mahomedans 68 

Mahrattas 6 

Rajpoots 3 

Indo-Britous 



NON-COMMISSIONED RaNK AND 

File. 
Caste. 

Christians 32 

Mahomedans 1,95 6 

Rajpoots 90 

Mahrattas 300 

Other castes 2 

ludo-Britous 159 



2,539 



Central Carnatic, Madras, 
Vellore, &c 64 

Southern Carnatic, Trichi- 
nopoly 7 

My sore? 3 

Taujore, Madura, and Tinne- 
velly 1 

Ceded districts 2 



11 



Count)'!/. 

Hindoostan 22 

Northern Circars 67 

Central Carnatic, Madras, 

Vellore, &c 1,841 

Southern Carnatic, Trichi- 

nopoly 

Baramahal - 

Ceded districts 

Mysore 

Tanjore, Madura, htdi Tin- 

nevelly 



205 
48 
54 

212 

90 



2,539 



Native i5FA^'T^^.Y, 52 Regiments. 



Native Officers. 

Caste. 

Christians 

Mahomedans 

Brahmins and Rajpoots... 

Mahrattas 

Telingas CGentoo) 

Tamil. ...\ 

Other castes 

Indo-Britous 



4 

584 

83 

12 

242 

97 



1,030 



Country. 

Hindoostan 51 

Northern Circars 317 

Central Carnatic, Madras, 

Vellore, &c 239 

Southern Carnatic, Trichi- 

nopoly 177 

Carried forward 784 



N0N-C0MMISS10NE£r. RaNK AND 

Pile. ' 
Caste. 

Christians 

Mahomedans 

Brahmins and Rajpoots... 

Mahrattas 

Telingas (Gentoo) 

Tamil 

Other castes 

Indo-Britons ,^. 



1,853 

15,272 

1,922 

385 

15,371 

4,275 

1,616 

1,011 







41,705 


Cowitry. 
Hindoostan, . ,... 
Nortliern C'rcars 


1,938 
16,938 

6,841 

4,760 


Central Carnatic, Madras, 
Vellore, &c 


Southern Carnatic 
nopoly 


Trichi- 



Carried forward... 32,477 



APPENDIX. 



623 



Country. 

Brought forward... 784 

Baramahal 29 

Ceded districts 32 

Mysore 59 

Tanjore, Madura, and Tin- 

nevelly 119 

Deccan and Mahratta 7 



1,030 



Coimtry. 

Brought forward.., 32,477 

Baramahal 1,022 

Ceded districts 1,705 

Mysore 2,698 

Tanjore, Madura, and Tin- 

nevelly 3,617 

Canara, Moulmein, Jaul- 

nah, and Belgaum 28 

Deccan and Mahratta 99 

Portugal 1 

Other parts 58 

41,705 



BOMBAY. 

Native Cavaley, 3 Regiments. 



Native Officers. 

Caste. 

Christians 1 

Mahomedans 12 

Brahmins and Bajpoots 9 

Mahrattas i 

Telingas (Gentoo) 

Tamil 

Other castes 12 

Indo-Britons 1 



36 



NON-COMMISSIONED, RaNK AN1» 

File. 
Caste. 

Ciiristians 66 

Mahomedans 459 

Brahmins and Rajpoots .... 252 

Mahrattas 118 

Telingas (Gentoo) 

Tamil 

Other castes 508 

Indo-Britons 22 



1,421 



Hindoostan 29 

Northern Circars 1 

Central Carnatic, Madras, 

Vellore, &c 2 

Southern Carnatic, Trichi- 

nopoly 

Deccan 2 

Concan. 1 

Mysore 

Tanjore, Madura, and Tinne- 

velly 

Bombay 1 



36 



Country. 

Hindoostan 1,073 

Northern Circars 21 

Central, Carnatic, Madras, 

Yellore, &c 30 

Southern Carnatic, Trichi- 

nopoly , 

Deccan ... 125 

Concan 114 

Mysore 

Tanjore, Madura, and Tin- 

nevelly 

Guzerat 14 

Persia 1 

Lisbon 4 

Africa 2 

Bombay 4 

Punjab and Scinde 21 

Cabool and AiFghanistau ... 15 

Europe 1 

1,425 



624 



A-PPENDU. 



Kative Tnfa-n^t-rt, 29 Recriments. 



Native Officers. 

Caste. 

Christians 5 

Mahomedans Hi 

Brahmins and Rajpoots 188 

Mahrattas 116 

... 6 
... 1 
... 3 
... 130 
... 
... 3 



Telingas (Gentoo) ... 

Tamil 

Jews ., 

Other castes , 

Indo-Britons 

Purwarrees 



563 



Country. 

Hindoostan 268 

Northern Circars 7 

Central Carnatic, Madras, 

Yellore, «S:c 37 

Southern Carnatic, Trichi- 

nopoly 13 

Deccan 57 

Concan 173 

Mysore 4 

Tanjore, Madura, and Tinne- 

velly 

Guzerat .., 4 



563 



xon-commissioned, 'ra^k a^sd 
File. 
Caste. 

Christians 270 

Mahomedans 2,048 

Brahmins and Eajpoots... 6,421 

Mahrattas 7,980 

TeUnrras (Gentoo) 107 

Tamil 55 

Jews ... 12 

Other castes 7,728 

Indo-Britons 22 

Purwarrees 170 

Mochees 29 

Sikhs 28 



24,870 



Country. 

Hindoostan 11,089 

Northern Circars 135 

Central Carnatic, Madras, 

Yellore, &c 412 

Southern Carnatic, Trichi- 

nopoly 203 

Deccan 1,820 

Concan 10,878 

Mysore 36 

Tanjore, Madura, and Tin- 

nevelly 33 

jNIysore and Punjab 28 

Guzerat SO 

Scinde, Punjab, and Haj- 

pootana 155 

Europe 1 

24,870 









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APPENDIX. i>2 



[In Chapter I., Book HI., some extracts are given fi-om an 
interesting memorandum furnished by Sir Kobert Phillimore, 
which is now given in its integrity.] 

MEMORIALS OF THE EARLY LIFE OF EARL CANNING. BY SIR 
ROBERT PHILLIMORE, QUEEN's ADVOCATE. 

" When young Canning was eleven years okl, his father took 
the usual steps for procuring his admission to Eton, the scene 
on which his own brilliant talents had given the first promise of 
that future excellence which they afterwards so fully realised. 
Mr. (afterwards Bishop) Chapman went, at the request of the 
Provost, Dr. Goodall, in 1824, to Gloucester Lodge, and in 
the presence of the great statesman examined his boy, in order 
that there might be no doubt as to his fitness to be placed in 
the upper school. The well-known description of the storm 
in the First ^neid, ' Interea magno misceri murmure pon- 
tum,' &c., was the passage chosen for the trial of his pro- 
ficiency ; and the Bishop now remembers the anxiety witli 
which the father watched the essay of his son, and the smile 
of approval which greeted his rendering of the rather difficult 
transition, ' Quos ego sed motos,' &c., and the final * not so 
bad,' which followed at the close of the whole translation 

"Young Canning was entered on the 4th September, 1824, 
at the house ot' Mr. Chapman. According to the records of 
the school, he was ^ plus vice simplici,' sent up ^ for good,* 
the only distinction at that time attainable at Eton. His re- 
putation, however, at school was rather for intelligence, accu- 
racy, and painstaking than for refined scholarship, or any 
remarkable powers of composition. The interval between 
Eton and Oxford was passed with a private tutor, the Reverend 
Thomas Shore, a nephew of Lord Teignmouth, who resided 
at Potton, Bedfordshire, but who discharged no public func- 
tions as a clergyman at that place. It is probable that he 
derived great benefit from the tuition of Mr. Shore. While 
under the care of this gentleman he formed an intimate friend- 
ship with the eldest son of the late Lord Harris (afterwards a 
contemporary at Christ Church), which continued without 
intermission to the last hour of his life. By a singular turn 

2 s2 



628 APPENDIX. 

of for^ane, Earl Canning became Governor-General of India 
while liis friend Lord Harris was Governor of Madras. Upon 
the death o^ Mr. Canning in 1827, Mrs. Canning was created 
a Viscountess, with remainder to her son. It was, neverthe- 
less, wisely determined not to send young Canning to Oxford 
as the son of a nobleman, but to obtain for him a studentship 
of Christ Church, and thereby to place him in exactly the 
same position at the University which his father had formerly 
occupied. It appears that he was nominated by Dr. Pett, the 
old friend and tutor of his father, and one of the canons of 
Christ Church, as a student on the roll which was made up 
December 24, 1827 ; but he was actually made a student by 
tlie Dean in filling up a roll dated December 20, 1828, *in 
return for Dr. Pett's nomination' having been given up (a 
practice not unfrequent at that time) to the Dean ' in the last 
roll.' 

' • Mr. Gladstone, Lord Elgin (then Mr. Bruce), Mr. Henry 
Denison (a distinguished scholar j, and Sir Bobert Phillimore, 
were, among others, brother students with him ; and in the 
number of his contemporaries at Christ Church, who after- 
wards became his colleagues in public life, were Lord Dal- 
housie and the Duke of Newcastle. He lived chiefly with a 
few intimate friends, among whom was Lord De Tabley, one 
of his executors. To them his naturally happy and cheerful 
temperament, his keen perception of character, his fund of 
quiet humour, his accomplishments as a scholar, and, above 
all, his loyal and affectionate heart, made him a delightful 
companion. He was not generally popular, and to those 
without his own immediate circle his manners were shy and 
reserved. He took at that time no particular interest in 
politics, and whether from a feeling that his father's great 
name imposed upon him an arduous responsibility, or from 
extreme sensitiveness to failure, did not then appear desirous 
to embark upon that stormy ocean of public life on which he 
afterwards so gallantly sailed and so nobly diedr 

"Those who heard his speech at the banquet given to him 
by the India House previous to his departure as Governor- 
General, know that he could, when strongly urged, put forth 
oratorical powers of a high order : but at Oxford^ as in after- 



APPENDIX. G29 

life, he showed no natural aptitude or inclination for speaking 
in public. His fastidious accuracy of language, his sensitive 
and proud nature, and a certain physical difficulty, as well, 
perhaps, as the ever-present recollection of his father's un- 
rivalled success as a parliamentary chieftain, combined to 
dissuade him from often attempting this particular path to 
distinction. But at Christ Church he acquired, or matured 
that command of pure English, and that excellent style which 
in every letter or even note which he wrote excited just ad- 
miration. 

" In the year 1831 he won the Christ Church prize for Latin 
verse. The subject was ' Caractacus captivus Romam ingre- 
ditur.' The verses were as usual recited in the hall. It was 
a remarkable scene. In that magnificent banqueting-room 
are hung the portraits of students who have reflected honour 
upon the House which reared them, by the distinctions which 
they have won in after-life. 

" Underneath the portrait of George Canning, the recollec- 
tion of whose brilliant career and untimely end was still fresh 
in the memory of men, stood the son in the prime of youth, 
recalling, by his eminently handsome countenance, the noble 
features of the portrait, while repeating the classical prize 
poem which would have gladdened his father's heart. Gene- 
rally speaking, the resident members of Christ Church alone 
compose the audience when the prize is recited, but on this 
occasion there was one stranger present — the old, faithful 
friend of ^Ir. Canning, his staunch political adherent through 
life, Mr. Sturges Bourne. He had travelled from London 
for the express purpose of witnessing the first considerable 
achievement of the younger Canning. 

" He closed his career at the University with distinguished 
success, obtaining, in Easter Term, 1833, a first-class in clas- 
sical and a second-class in mathematical honours. He took 
the degree of B.A. in the same year, but never proceeded to 
tiie (leffree Ct M.A.'' — MS. Memorandum. 



630 APPENDIX. 



FINAL ORDERS TO THE MUSKETRY SCHOOLS. 

[The following is the letter referred to at page 561 — note:] 

The Adjutant- General of tlie Army to Major-General Hearsey, 
"Adjutant-General's Office, Simlali, April 13, 1857. 

^* Sir, — Eeferring to the telegraph message from this office 
elated the 23rd ultimo (and your acknowledgments of the 
25th idem), communicating the Commander-in-Chiefs orders 
to postpone the target practice of the Native soldiers at the 
Eifle Depot at Dum-Dum, pending further instructions from 
this Department, I am now desired to request you will be good 
enough to inform the officer commanding at Dum-Dum, and 
through him the Depot authorities concerned, that the course 
of instruction is to be completed by the Native details, and 
that their target practice is to be commenced as soon as prac- 
ticable after the Government General Order disbanding the 
Nineteenth Eegimentof Native Infantry has been read to the 
troops at the station, including the detachments of Native re- 
giments at the Depot. 

" 2. The grease for the cartridge is to be any unobjectionable 
mixture which may be suited for the purpo'se, to be provided 
by selected parties comprising all castes concerned, and is to 
be applied by the men themselves. 

" 3. The paper of which the cartridges are constructed 
having been proved by chemical test, and otherwise, to be 
perfectly free from grease, and in all respects unobjection- 
able ; and all possible grounds for objection in regard to the 
biting of the cartridge, and the nature of the grease to be 
used, having been removed, it is not anticipated that the men 
will hesitate to perform the target practice ; but, in the event 
of any such unexpected result, the Commander-in-Chief de- 
sires that their officers may be instructed to reason calmly 
with them, pointing out the utter groundlessness for any 
objection to the use of the cartridges now that biting the 
end has been dispensed with, and the provision and applica- 
tion of the necessary greasing material has been left to them- 
sselves ; and, further, to assure them that any one who shall 



APPENDIX. 631 

molest or taunt them on return to their corps, shall be visited 
with severe punishment. 

" 4. The officer commanding the Depot will be held respon- 
sible that the above directions respecting the greasing mixture, 
and those recently issued in regard to the new mode of load- 
ing, are strictly observed. 

" 5. If, notwithstanding all these precautions and coiisiderate 
measures, any disinclination to use the cartridges shall be 
manifested, the parties demurring are to be warned calmly 
and patiently, but firmly, that a persistence in such unjusti- 
fiable conduct will be viewed as disobedience of orders and in- 
subordination, and treated accordingly, and in the event of 
any individuals after such warning obstinately refusing to fire, 
the officer commanding at Dum-Dum will at once place such 
parties in arrest or confinement, according to the rank of the 
offenders, and cause them to be tried by Court-Martial . 

" 6. If, however, the entire Depot shall combinedly refuse to 
fire, which is very improbable, the Commander-in-Chief, 
under such circumstances, empowers you to place all the 
Native officers in arrest pending his Excellency's further 
orders, which you will immediately apply for ; to deprive the 
non-commissioned officers and Sepoys of their arms and ac- 
coutrements, and to pay them up and summarily discharge 
them on the spot, excepting, of course, any ringleaders in 
these latter grades or parties whose refusal may be accom- 
panied by insolence or insubordination, who are to be placed 
under arrest or confinement, in view of their being arraigned 
before a District or General Court-Martial, as the case may 
require. 

" 7. This communication is to be considered purely confi- 
dential, and his Excellency relies implicitly on your carrying 
out the instructions it contains with the utmost caution and 
discretion. 

"I have the honour to be. Sir, 

" Your most obedient servant, 

" C. Chestek, Col. 
" Adjt'Gen. of the Armyr 
— MS, Records, 



632 APPENDIX. 



THE CIIUPATTIES. 

[It is stated at page 571 that Mr. Ford, Magistrate and 
Collector of Goorgaon, was the first to call the attention of 
the Government of the North-Western Provinces to this sub- 
ject. His letter, addressed, in official course, to the Commis- 
sioner of Delhi, is appended :] 

" Goorgaon Magistracy, February 19, 1857. 

" Sir, — I have tlia honour to inform you that a signal has 
passed through numbers of the villages of this district, the 
purport of w^hich has not yet transpired. 

" The Chowkeydars of the villages bordering on those be- 
longing to Mutra have received small baked cakes of atta, 
with orders to distribute them generally through this district. 

" A Chowkeydar, upon receiving one of these cakes, has had 
five or six more prepared, and thus they have passed from 
village to village ; so quickly has the order been executed, 
that village after village has been served with this notice. 

" This day, cakes of this description have arrived and been 

distributed in the villages about Goorgaon, and an idea has 

been industriously circulated that Government has given the 

order. " W. Ford, Magistrate. 

"To Simon Eraser, Esq., 

" Coniniissioner, Dellii." 



[In the course of the trial of the King of Delhi great pains 
were taken to extract from the witnesses, both European and 
Native, some explanation of the " Chupatty mystery ;" but 
nothing satisfactory was elicited. The following opinions, 
however, were recorded :] 

From the Evidence of Jat MalU News-writer to the Lieutenant- 
Governor. 

" Q. Did you ever hear of the circulation of chupatties about 
the country some months before the outbreak ; and if so, what 
was supposed to be the meaning of this ? 

A, Yes, I did hear of the circumstance. Some people said 
that it was a propitiatory observance to avert some impending 



ArPENDix. 633 

calamity ; others, that they were circulated by the Govern- 
ment to signify that the population throughout the country 
would be compelled to use the same food as the Christians, 
and thus be deprived of their religion ; while others, again, 
said that the chupatties were circulated to make it known that 
Government was determined to force Christianity on the 
country by interfering with their food, and intimation of it 
was thus given that they might be prepared to resist the 
attempt. 

Q. Is sending such articles about the country a custom 
among the Hindoos or Mussulmans ; and would the meaning 
be at once understood without any accompanying explana- 
tion ? 

A. No, it is not by any means a custom ; I am fifty years 
old, and never heard of such a thing before. 

Q. Did you ever hear that any message was sent with the 
chupatties ? 

A, No ; I never heard of any. 

Q. Were these chupatties chiefly circulated by Mahomedans 
or Hindoos ? 

A. They were circulated indiscriminately, without refer- 
ence to either religion, among the peasantry of the country." 



From the Evidence of Sir Theophilus Metcalfe. 

" Q. Can you give the Court any information about the 
chupatties which were circulated from village to village some 
months before the outbreak ; and has it been ascertained how 
they originated, or what was the purport of their being circu- 
lated ? 

A, There is nothing but conjecture regarding them, but 
the first suggestion made by the Natives in reference to them 
was, that they were thus sent about in connexion with some 
sickness that prevailed ; but this was clearly an error, as I took 
the trouble of ascertaining that these chupatties were never 
sent into any Native States, but were confined always to Go- 
vernment Adllages ; they were spread through only five villages 
of the Delhi territory, when they were immediately stopped 
by authority, and they never proceeded farther up-country. 



634 APPENDIX. 

I sent for the men who had brouj^ht them from the district of 
Bolundshuhr, and their apology for circulating them was that 
they believed it to be done by order of the English Govern- 
ment, that they had received them elsewhere, and had but 
forwarded them on. I believe that the meaning of the 
chupatties was not understood in the Delhi district ; but 
originally they were to be taken to all those who partook of 
one kind of food, connecting a body of men together in con- 
tradistinction to those w^ho lived differently and had different 
customs. I think these chupatties originated at Lucknow, 
and were, no doubt, meant to sound a note of alarm and pre- 
paration, giving warning to the people to stand by one another 
on any danger menacing them." 



From the Evidence of Chuni, News-icriter. 

" Q. Do you recollect the circumstance of chupatties being 
circulated from villaoe to villao^e ? 

A . Yes, I remember hearing of it before the outbreak. 

Q. Was the subject discussed in the Native newspapers ; 
and if so, what was considered the meaning of it ? 

A, Yes, it was alluded to, and it was supposed to portend 
some coming disturbance, and was, moreover, understood as 
implying an invitation to the whole population of the country 
to unite for some secret object afterwards to be disclosed. 

Q. Do you know whence these chupatties originated, or to 
what quarter general opinion among the Natives attributed 
them ? 

A. I have no knowledge as to where they w^ere first started, 
but it was generally supposed that they came from Kurnaul 
and Paneeput." 



From the Evidence of Captain Martineau. 

" Q. Had you any conversation with these men {i. e. with the 
men assembled at Umballah for musketry instruction) relative 
to some chupatties that were circulated to different villages in 
these districts before the outbreak ? 



APPENDIX. 635 

A, Yes, I had frequent conversations with various Sepoys 
on this subject. I asked them what they understood in re- 
ference to them, and by whom they supposed that they w ere 
circulated ; they described them to me as being in size and 
shape like ship biscuits, and believed them to have been distri- 
buted by order of Government through the medium of their 
servants for the purpose of intimating to the people of Hin- 
doostan that they should all be compelled to eat the same food, 
and that was considered as a token that they should likewise 
be compelled to embrace one faith, or, as they termed it, ' One 
food and one faith.' 

Q, As far as you could understand, was this idea generally 
prevalent among all the Sepoys of the various detachments at 
the Depot ? 

A, It was prevalent, as far as I could judge, among all the 
Sepoys of every regiment that furnished a detachment to the 
Depot at Umballah. 

Q, Was there any report of the Government having mixed 
ground bones with flour for the purpose of having it distri- 
buted to the Sepoys, and so destroying their caste ? 

A, Yes, I heard of this in the month of March. It was 
told me that all the flour retailed from the Government 
Depots for the supply of troops on the march was so adul- 
terated. 

Q. Do you think the Sepoys generally firmly believed 
this ? 

A. I have seen correspondence from various men, which 
the Sepoys of the Depot voluntarily placed in my hands, the 
writers of which, themselves Sepoys, evidently believed that 
such was the case. 

Q. Did the Sepoys ever speak to you about any other cause 
of complaint, or points on which they sought information ? 

A, Their complaint, or rather fear, was this : they appre- 
hended that Government was going forcibly to deprive them 
of their caste. 

Q. Did any of them ever speak about Government inter- 
ference regarding the re-marriage of Hindoo widows ? 

A, Yes, they alluded to that as an invasion of their social 
rights." 



G36 APPENDIX. 



From the Statement of Hakim Alisan Ullah, Confidential Phi)' 
siciaii to the King of Delhi, 

" Nobody can tell what was tlie object of the distribution of 
the clmpatties. It is not known who first projected the plan. 
All the people in the palace wondered what it could mean. I 
had no conversation with the King on the subject; but others 
talked in his presence about it, wondering what could be the 
object. 

" I consider that the chupatty affair probably originated with 
tlie Native troops, and the distribution first commenced in 
Oude. I also wondered what it was, but considered that it 
implied something. 

" I consider that the distribution of the chupatties first began 
in Oude. 

" It was the opinion of some that the Native troops had de- 
signed these chupatties as emblematical of some particular 
object. Others believed that there was some charm attached 
to them, inasmuch as they were distributed unknown all over 
the country, and without it being known who first originated 
the idea, and whence they were first sent out. People also 
believed that these chupatties w^ere the invention of some 
adept in the secret arts, in order to preserve unpolluted the 
religion of the country, which, it was reported, the Govern- 
ment had proposed to themselves to subvert in two years." 



[The following extracts from published works bear upon 
the subject of inquiry. In the first, the preceding statement 
that the circulation of the chupatties commenced in Oude, is 
corroborated :] 

" Some time in February, 1857, a curious occurrence took 
place. It began on the confines of Oude. A Chowkeydar 
ran up to another village with two chupatties. He ordered 
his fellow-official to make ten more, and give two to each of 
the five nearest village Chowkeydars with the same instruc- 
tions. In a few hours the whole country was in a stir, from 
Chowkeydars flying about with these cakes. The signal spread 



APPENDIX. 637 

in all directions with wonderful celerity. The magistrates 
tried to stop it, but, in spite of all they could do, it passed 
along to the borders of the Punjab. There is reason to believe 
that this was originated by some intriguers of the old Court of 
Lucknow. Its import has not been satisfactorily explained, 
and was probably not understood by many who helped it 
along. But the same thing occurred in Behar and about 
Jhansi in connexion with the discontent caused by the new 
income-tax. It has been stated by a Native authority, pub- 
lished by Mr. Russell of the Times (see Friend of India, March 
10, 1859), that the first circulation of the chupatties was 
made at the suggestion of a learned and holy pundit, who told 
Rajah Madhoo Singh that the people would rise in rebellion 
if it were done, and that the person in whose name the cakes 
were sent would rule all India. This, however, is very doubt- 
ful." — Siege of Delhi, by an Officer who served there. 



"That remarkable and still unexplained passage through 
Oude, and elsewhere, of the chupatty symbol, occurred early 
in 1857, and, from the first movement of its advent into Oude, 
spread with such amazing rapidity, that it was calculated ten 
days more than sufficed for every village Chowkeydar in 
Oude to have received the little bread-cake, and made and 
passed on similar little bread-cakes to every village Ciiow- 
keydar within the ordinary radius of his travels. The Natives 
generally may have viewed this sign-manual flying through 
their villages — so common a method amongst men in the early 
stages of civilisation to warn all for either peace or war — as a 
forerunner of some universal popular outbreak, but by whom 
or with what class the standard of rebellion would be raised 
certainly was not generally known." — Narrative of the Mutinies 
in Oude^ compiled from Authentic Records, hi) Captain G, 
Hutchinson, Military Secretary to the Chief Commisisione'^y 
Oude, 



" In the North- West Provinces it was discovered that 
chupatties were being circulated throughout the countiy in 



638 APPENDIX. 

a s«3mewhat mysterious manner.* The fact was duly re- 
por:ed from various quarters ; inquiries were ordared to be 
set on foot, but nothing further could be traced as to their 
origin or object, and they were suffered to travel on from 
village to village with little let or hindrance. Some fifty 
years before a similar appearance in Central India had per- 
plexed the authoritieSjt but no solution of the mystery had 
been gained, and as nothing had then resulted from it, the 
hope was grasped at that in the present instance also, if not 
meaningless, it might prove equally harmless : it might be 
some superstitious spell against disease, for cholera had 
ravaged several districts during the previous autumn, or 
against some impending calamity, for the whole country 
teemed with forebodino-s of comino; trouble. At all events, 
the idea w^as scouted of its having any political meaning ; 
and far-seeing old Indians, who dared to look gravely on 
the ^chupatty mystery,' were denounced as croakers." — The 
Punjab and Dellii in 1857, hy the Rev. T, Cave-Browne^ Chap- 
lain of the Punjab Moveable Column. 



" The leaders and promoters of this great rebellion, whoever 
they may have been, knew well the inflammable condition, 
from these causes, of the rural society in the North-Western 
Provinces, and they therefore sent among them the chupatties, 
as a kind of fiery cross, to call them to action. The cakes 

* One district officer, wlio saw a f Mr. Browne, in his very interest- 
clmpatty-laden messenger arrive in iiig and trustworthy work, quotes, 
a village, and observed him breaking as his authority i'or this, "Kaye's 
iiis cake into pieces and distributing Life of Metcalfe;" but I have no 
them among the men of the village, recollection of the statement, and I 
asked what it meant ; he was told liave caused a dihgent search to be 
that there was an old castom in made through tlie work, but with no 
Hindoostan, that when their w«/«/^, or success. 1 remember, however, to 
chief, required any service from his liave read in the papers ot Sir John 
people, he adopted this mode to pre- Malcohn a statement to the effect 
pare them for receiving his orders, that, at a time of political excitement, 
and every one wlio partook of the chu- I believe just before the mutiny of 
patties was held pledged to obey the the Coast Army in 1806, there had 
order whenever it might come, and been a mysterious circuhiticn of 
whatever it might be. "What was sugar. There was also, in 2818, a 
the nature of the order in the pre- very perplexing distribution Ci cocoa- 
sent case?" he asked. The answer, nuts in Central India; but it svibse- 
nccompanied by a suspicious smile, quontly appeared to have been the re- 
was, ** We don't know yet." suit of u mere accident. — J. W. K. 



APPENDIX. 689 

passed witli the most amazing rapidity over the lenorth and 
breadth of the land. Where they came from originally, it is 
impossible to say, but I believe Barrackpore was the starting- 
point, where large masses of mutinous Sepoys were congre- 
gated. The chupatties entered my district from the adjoining 
one of Shajehanpoor, a village watchman of that place giving 
to the watchman of the nearest Budaon village two of the 
cakes, with an injunction to make six fresh ones, retain two 
for his own, and give the others to the watchman of the next 
village, who would follow the same course, and continue the 
manufacture and distribution. I truly believe that the rural 
population of all classes, among whom these cakes spread, 
were as ignorant as I was myself of their real object ; but it 
was clear they were a secret sign to be on the alert, and the 
minds of the people vv'ere through them kept watchful and 
excited. As soon as the disturbances broke out at Meerut 
and Delhi, the cakes explained themselves, and the people at 
once perceived what was expected of them." — Personal Adven- 
tures during the Indian Rebellion in Rohilcund, Futtehgliur^ 
and Oude, by William Edioards, . Esq., B.C.S., Judge oj 
Benares, and late Magistrate and Collector of Budaon, in 
Rohilcund, 

[Compare also the statement at page 647.] 



THE BONE-DUST STORY. 



[The following translations from Native letters and papers 
show how general was the belief among the Sepoys in all 
parts of the country that the Government had mixed ground 
bones with the flour, and purposed to compel or to delude them 
to eat it :] 

Translation of an Anonymous Petition sent, in March, 1857, to 
Major Matthews, commanding the 4:drd Regiment at Barrack- 
pore, 

" The representation of the whole station is this, that we will 
not give up our religion. We serve for honour and religion ; 
if we lose our religion, the Hindoo and Mahomedan religi^ms 



640 APPENDIA. 

will be destroyed. If we live, what shall we do ? You are 
the masters of the country. The Lord Sahib has given 
orders, wliicli he has received from the Company, to all com- 
manding officers to destroy the religion of the country. We 
know tliis, as all things are being bought up by Government. 
The officers in the Salt Department mix up bones with the 
salt. The officer in charge of the ghee mixes up fat with it ; 
this is well known. These are two matters. The third is 
this : that the Sahib in charge of the sugar burns up bones 
and mixes tliem in the syrup the sugar is made of ; this is 
well known — all know it. The fourth is this : that in the 
country the Burra Sahibs have ordered the Rajahs, Thakurs, 
Zemindars, Mahajans, and Ryots, all to eat together, and 
English bread has been sent to them ; this is well known. 
And this is another affair, that throughout the country the 
wives of respectable men, in fact, all classes of Hindoos, on 
becoming widows, are to be married again ; this is known. 
Therefore we consider ourselves as killed. You all obey the 
orders of the Company, which we all know. But a king, or 
any other one who acts unjustly, does not remain. 

" With reference to the Sepoys, they are your servants ; but, 
to destroy their caste, a council assembled and decided to give 
them muskets and cartridges made up with greased paper to 
bite ; this is also evident. We wish to represent this to the 
General, that we do not approve of the new musket and 
cartridge ; the Sepoys cannot use them. You are the masters 
of the country ; if you will give us all our discharge we will 
go away. The Native officers, Soubahdars, Jemadars, are all 
good in the whole Brigade, except two, whose faces are like 
pigs : the Soubahdar Major of the 70th Regiment, who is a 
Christian, and Thakur Misser, Jemadar of the 43rd Regiment 
Light Infantry. 

" Whoever gets this letter must read it to the Major as it is 
written. If he is a Hindoo and does not, his crime will be 
equal to the slaughter of a lakh of cows ; and if a Mussul- 
man, as though he had eaten pig ; and if a European, must 
read it to the Native officers, and if he does not, his going to 
church will be of no use, and be a crime. Thakur Misser 
iias lost his religion. Chattrees are not to respect him. Brali- 



APPENDIX. 641 

mins are not to salute or bless him. If they do, their crime 
will be equal to the slaughter of a lakh of covvs. He is the 
son of a Chumar. The Brahmin who hears this is not to 
feed him ; if he does, his crime will be equal to the murdering 
of a lakh of Brahmins or cows. 

" May this letter be given to Major Matthew^s. Any one 
who gets it is to give it, if he does not, and is a Hindoo, his 
crime will be as the slaughter of a lakh of cows ; and if a 
Mussulman, as if he had eaten pig ; and if he is an officer he 
must give it." 



Translation of a Letter from Inayut-Oolah Goolaotliee^ of 
Boolundshulir, to his Brother Fyzool Hussaru Extra Assistant, 
Rawul Pindee, 

" The reason of my letters not reaching you is 

this : that on the 12th of Ramyan, in Meerut ' Khas^ such a 
fight occurred between the Native and European troops oi? 
a point of religion as cannot be described. The foundatioi/ 
of the quarrel was this : that thousands of maunds of atta 
Avas taken into every ressalah and regiment; and with this 
atta Avas mixed the ground bones of the cow and pig ; and 
the cartridges were also made with the fat of the cow and pig. 
The shopkeepers in the city were ordered to purchase " atta" 
from Government and sell it in all the villages. It was 
ordered by beat of drum that atta be not ground in any vil- 
lage, and that in every district all the mills should be con- 
fiscated to Government. It was also ordered that ten maunds 
of atta be thrown into every well, kuchcha or pukka, in every 
village and town. The troops at every station with one ac- 
cord said, that if the troops at Meerut should receive the atta 
and cartridges, they would receive them without objection. 
A few European officers assembled at Meerut, and having 
collected the officers of the pultun and ressalah, ordered 
them to take the atta from the Government and to bite the 
cartridges with the mouth. A few Sirdars objected to do 
60 : but two, one a Hindoo and the other a Mussulman, bit 
ihe cartrido'e with the mouth. A reward of one hundred 
rwpees was immediately paid to both. The rest said that 

2t 



642 APPENDIX. 

they would consult each other during the night, and intimate 
the result the next morning. There were about eighty-four 
men. They were instantly sent to jail in irons. One among 
them, a Syud, who was fasting, struck his head on the ground 
and died. About two hours before sunset the troops girded 
up their loins and killed all the European soldiers and officers 
that were present. Only the Commissioner and the District 
Officer escaped. The rest of the principal Europeans were 
killed — women nor even children, all that were Em'opeans, 
escaped. Afterwards they went to the jail. There was a 
sentry at the gate, whom they asked to open it. The sentry 
refused, upon w^hich a Sowar, who was a Syud, advanced, 
and, with the name of God in his mouth, forced open the 
gate with a kick. They then collected blacksmiths from the 
city, and, taking them to the jail, unfettered several thousand 
prisoners. Both the jails were broken through. Then they 
went to and sacked the treasury. This state of things con- 
tinued for two days. The people of the city of Meerut also 
joined them, as also the Syuds of Ubdoollapoor, a village 
near Meerut. The whole of the cantonment was fired ; not 
a single bungalow escaped. The ^Dewanee Duftur' was 
also burnt. On the third day they went away to Delhi ; 
small bodies of them also scattered themselves in different dis- 
tricts. Three days afterwards the troops at Umballah burnt 
that cantonment and went away to Delhi. The Native troops 
at Eoorkee also fired that station, and went over to Meerut. 
The residue of the European troops, being joined by others, 
demanded their arms from the Native soldiery, but they re- 
fused. The European troops surrounded them with guns. 
In a single volley forty of the Natives were killed, but the 
latter in their turn sent sixty-five Gorahs to hell by a single 
volley of their muskets. The Native troops then took their 
way to Delhi. A few went to the village of Ubdoollapoor, 
the Syuds of which place gave them refuge and consolation. 
But secretly they sent a man and informed the Commis- 
sioner, who proceeded with ten guns to Ubdoollapoor, and cut 
off the road to Meerut and Delhi. Then the scoundrels 
(Syuds of Ubdoollapoor) informed the refugees that they had 
given them shelter, but that Government troops had arrived 



APPENDIX. 643 

Tlie poor fellows then fled, but In their flight about fifteen or 
twenty were killed and several wounded ; but they also killed 
about forty men, and then went to Delhi. In short, from all 
sides the Native troops assembled at Delhi and desired the 
King to ascend the throne. His Majesty refused; but the 
Sepoys said : ' Do you ascend the throne, else we shall cut 
off your head and bury your body underneath the throne, and 
place one from among ourselves on the throne.' They then 
placed Shahzadah Jewan Bukht on the throne. They then 
fired the Tuhseel stations at Ghazeeabad, Mooradnuggur, 
Mooradabad, and Cawnpore, &c., and Thanas of the Badsh? 
were located there. One month's pay has been distributed to 
the troops by the King. The King also Avrote to the Eng- 
lish, telling them tliat their troops, having been dissatisfied 
with them, had come over to the Kino; and to take them 
away. The English replied, that the King himself should 
send them back. A Moulavee from Meerut and another from 
some other place have gone over to Delhi with about six 
thousand men to make religious war. The Royal mandates 
were Issued to the different Rajahs to wait upon the King. 
It Is said that the Rajah of Bullubgurh has waited upon his 
Majesty with his troops ; and it Is also said that the King has 
raised new troops, and has fixed the pay of the Foot soldier 
at twelve rupees, and that of the Sowar at thirty rupees, per 
mensem. I have sent a man to Delhi to ascertain the course 
of events there ; when he comes back the real state of things 
will be known. Traffic has ceased In several districts. The 
Jats and Goojurs have commenced plundering, and news 
arrives daily of the plundering of villages here and there. A 
revolution has occurred In the whole country. ....." 



'^ News from Meerut'^ — Translated from the '^ Soohah Sadik" 
published at Madras. 

" The same newspaper* tells us that In the Patau Bele 
Camp, at Meerut, the same cartridges arrived, on account of 
which the Barrackpore officers had earned a reputation, oii 

* The Jami-Jamshid of Meerut. 

2 T 2 



044 APPENDIX. 

the 18tli or lOtli of the current month ; and the flour-boxes, 
which had been pubhcly stated to contain hogs' bones mixed 
up in them, also came. The order was that the men of the 
regiment should purchase the flour. On this account no 
one ate food, and refused to take the flour or the cartridges. 
Though it is not right to suspect the Sirkars — as they have 
nothing to do with religion — yet in this business there is no 
doubt that, in the wisdom of Government, they have suddenly 
withdrawn from kindly feeling towards the hearts of their 
subjects. It is very lamentable. The sky kisses the earth 
from grief." 



THE NANA SAHIB AND AZIM-OOLLAH KHAN 

[The visit of the Nana Sahib to Lucknow, in April, 1857, 
referred to at page 576, is thus described by Mr. Martin 
Gubbins in his history of the Mutinies in Oude :] 

" I must here mention a visit which was made to Lucknow, 
in April, by the Nana of Bithoor, whose subsequent treachery 
and atrocities have given him a pre-eminence in infamy. He 
came over on pretence of seeing the sights at Lucknow, ac- 
companied by his younger brother and a numerous retinue, 
bringing letters of introduction from a former Judge of 
Cawnpore to Captain Hayes and to myself. He visited me, 
and his manner was arrogant and presuming. To make a 
show of dignity and importance, he brought six or seven fol- 
lowers with him into the room, for whom chairs were de- 
manded. One of these men was his notorious agent, Azim- 
oollah. His younger brother was more pleasing in appearance 
and demeanour. The Nana was introduced by me to Sir 
Henry Lawrence, who received him kindly, and ordered the 
authorities of the city to show him every attention. I subse- 
quently met him parading through Lucknow w^ith a retinue 
more than usually large. He had ]:i"/omised before leaving 
Lucknow to make his final call on the Wednesday. On the 
Monday, we received a message from him that urgent busi- 
ness required his attendance at Cawnpore, and he left Luck- 
now accordingly. At the time his conduct excited little atten- 



APPENDIX. 645 

tion; but it was otherwise when affairs had assumed the 
aspect which they did at Cawnpore by the 20th of May. 
His demeanour at Lucknow and sudden departure to Cawn- 
pore appeared exceedingly suspicious, and I brought it to the 
notice of Sir Henry Lawrence. The Chief Commissioner 
concurred in my suspicions, and by his authority I addressed 
Sir Hugh Wheeler, cautioning him against the Nana, and 
stating Sir Henry's belief that he was not to be depended on. 
The warning was unhappily disregarded, and, on the 22nd of 
May, a message was received stating that ^ two guns and 
three hundred men, cavalry and infantry, furnished by the 
Maharajah of Bithoor, came in this morning.' " 



[At pages 579-80 (note) there is an extract from the evi- 
dence of a Native emissary, taken by the Hon. H. B. Deve- 
reux. Judicial Commissioner of Mysore. This man, Seetaram 
Bawa by name, was very distinct and emphatic in his decla- 
ration that the Nana Sahib had been, for some time before 
the outbreak, stirring up this revolt against the English. The 
following further passages from this man's evidence, whether 
or not accepted as truth, will be read with interest :] 

" Then Bajee Rao died at Bithoor. He left a widow and 
an adopted son named Nana Sahib, who was always a worth- 
less and not very clever fellow, and never would have been 
anything but for the tuition of his Gooroo, Dassa Bawa (said 
to have come from a place called Kalee Dhar, beyond 
Kangra, this side of Jummoo). Three years ago, or per- 
haps a month less. Nana Sahib gave the Gooroo, Dassa Bawa, 
a sunnud, granting a five-lakh jaghir and five nachatras,* 
because Dassa Bawa had told him that he would become as 
powerful as the Peishwah had once been ; and the sunnud 
was to take effect when he came into power. Dassa Bawa 
then made a Hunooman horoscope of eight angles. Nana 
then, after seven days of prayer, went to sleep on the horo- 
scope, and Hunooman having revealed to him that he would 
be victorious, he felt that the truth of the prediction had been 
confirmed, and at once presented Dassa Bawa with twenty- 

* Kettle-drums— marks of dignify. 



646 ArrENDix. 

five tliousancl rupees' worth of jewels. Dassa Bawa then 
w^ent to Nepaul, &c. Dassa Bawa is the person who has 
helped and advised the Nana throughout. The Nana gives 
him much monev. . . ." 



'* Q. How and when were the Sepoys induced to join in the 
revolt ? 

A. Not before the annexation of Onde, but before the 
affair of the greased cartridges, which was a mere pretext. 
After that, Maun Singh sent four or five Poorbeahs to every 
regiment in the service of the Company, and by their means 
all communications took place. Even down at the French 
Rocks there were men. They were able to enlist in the cause 
the Poorbeahs, Hindostanees, and many Mussulmans, but in 
no instance did they attempt to gain over the Tamil or Telegoo 
Sepoys, or other Hindoos ot this side of India, for they knew 
it would be useless. They eat differently, and do not inter- 
marry. The Hindoos of the South have no sympathy with 
those of the North, whereas the Mahomedans are united in 
feeling throughout India. If a Hindoo is glad, nobody but 
his own nearest people will sympathise ; but if a Mussulman 
is glad, all Mussulmans rejoice. 

Q. Explain what the plan of attack really was. 

A, A night was to have been fixed on which, without risk- 
ing anything, the whole of the European officers were to have 
been killed, and the treasuries plundered. The magazines 
were to have been taken possession of when possible, or else 
blown up. But it was never intended to injure women or 
children. Nearly/ all were of one mind in the different regi- 
ments. It is not the Brahmins and great men that have de- 
stroyed helpless children, women with child, and poor w^omen. 
[He spoke this with great excitement.] It was the intention 
to destroy your men, but it was villagers and savages who de- 
stroyed your women and children, such as Maun Singh and 
his Poorbeahs. Nana Sahib, though always a w^orthless fellow, 
and nothing without Dassa Bawa, could never have ordered 
tne massacre of the women and children. Had tiiey no 
mothers or sisters ! Had thev no heart for them ! I heard 



APPENDIX. G47 

of what happened with sorrow. We object to your raj. All 
men have peace and freedom under it — such freedom as we 
never enjoyed before — but we sorrow for our caste. I am 
speaking of Brahmins. Brahmins love good food and ease. 
The Company does not give it (muft) gratis, and we wish for 
a return of that which will enable us to obtain it, or rather 
place matters in such a position that we can obtain it. We 
feel the pressure of your rule in this respect. Nana Sahib 
wrote both to Gholab Singh and to Russia, and he got an 
answer from Russia. In that answer he was told that no as- 
sistance could be given him unless he could take and could 
hold Delhi ; but that, if he could succeed in that, then assist- 
ance would be given him to drive us from Calcutta. The 
letter was sent to Jummoo, and forwarded on from thence by 
the hands of the people who bring almonds and fruit. The 
country beyond Jummoo is said to be pure Mussulman, but I 
do not know anything about it. First, Gholab Singh joined, 
and as soon as the union of the Mussulmans and Hindoos was 
settled, several letters were sent to Russia. 

Q. Can you explain anything about the chupatty cakes 
which were passed over India before the insurrection ? 

A. The cakes in question were a jadoo or charm, which 
originated with Dassa Bawa, who told Nana Sahib that he 
would make a jadoo, and, as far as these magic cakes should 
be carried, so far should the people be on his side. He then 
took the reed of the lotus, or rumul, called mukhana, and 
made an idol of it. He then reduced the idol to very small 
pills, and, having made an immense number of cakes, he put 
a pillet in each, and, as far as the cakes were carried, so far 
would the people determine to throw off the Company's raj. 
None came as far as this country. 

Q. What made Nana Sahib originate this conspiracy ? 

A. The Company Sirkar placed all the treasure of his 
father under attachment, and he wanted to gain possession of 
it. The people about him urged him — the opportunity offered, 
and he took advantage of it. 

Q. How do you know all this ? 

A. Every person, particularly every Brahmin, is well ac- 
quainted with all this, and the fact of these letters having, 



G48 ArrENDix. 

been written. Why, every Baboo in Calcutta knew of it.'' — 
MS. Records, 



[Many readers will smile at the statement tliat the Nana 
Sahib was in correspondence with Russia, and received an 
answer to his overtures. But, it is by no means improbable 
that Azim-oollah Khan entered into communication with some 
Russian officers, responsible or irresponsible, and it is cer- 
tain that at the time of the Crimean war nothing could have 
better served the interests of Russia than a revolt in India. 
That Azim-oollah visited the Crimea, we know upon the 
best possible authority — that of Mr. Russell, who has given, 
in his '' Diary in India," the following interesting account of 
his meeting with the Nana's agent in the trenches before 
Sebastopol :] 

" Whilst I am writing about it, I may as well relate an inci- 
dent in connexion with one of the Nana's chief advisers, 
which I mentioned to the Governor-General, who appeared 
much struck with it. After the repulse of the allies in their 
assault on Sebastopol, 18th June, an event closely followed 
by the death of Lord Raglan and a cessation of any opera- 
tions, except such as were connected with a renewed assault 
upon the place, I went down for a few days to Constantinople, 
and, whilst stopping at Misseri's Hotel, saw, on several occa- 
sions, a handsome slim young man, of dark-olive complexion, 
dressed in an Oriental costume which was new to me, and 
covered with rings and finery. He spoke French and Eng- 
lish, dined at the table dlwte^ and, as far as I could make out, 
was an Indian Prince, who \^'as on his way back from the pro- 
secution of an unsuccessful claim against the East India Com- 
pany in London. He had made the acquaintance of Mr. 
Doyne, who was going out to the Crimea as the superin- 
tendent of Sir Joseph Paxton's Army Works Corps, and by 
that gentleman he was introduced to me one fine summer s 
evening, as we were smoking on the roof of the hotel. I did 
not remember his name, but I recollect that he expressed 
great anxiety about a passage to the Crimea, ' as,' said he, 
' I want to see this famous city, and those great Roostums — 
the Russians — who have beaten French and English together. 



APPENDIX. 649 

Indeed, he added that he was going to Calcutta, when the 
news of the defeat of June 18th reached him at Malta, and 
he was so excited by it that he resolved to go to Constanti- 
nople, and endeavour thence to get a passage to Balaklava. 
In the course of conversation he boasted a good deal of his 
success in London society, and used the names of people of 
rank very freely, which, combined with the tone of his re- 
marks, induced me to regard him with suspicion, mingled, I 
confess, with dislike. He not only mentioned his bonnes 
fortunes^ but expressed a A^ery decided opinion that unless 
women were restrained, as they were in the East, ' like moths 
in candlelight, they will fly and get burned.' I never saw or 
heard anything more of him till some weeks afterwards, when 
a gentleman rode up to my hut at Cathcart's Hill, and sent 
me in a note from Mr. Doyne, asking me to assist his friend 
Azim-oollah Khan in visiting the trenches, and on going out 
I recognised the Indian Prince. I had his horse put up, and 
walked to the General's hut to get a pass for him. The sun 
was within an hour of setting, and the Russian batteries had 
just opened, as was their custom, to welcome our reliefs and 
working-parties, so that shot came bounding up towards the 
hill where our friend was standing, and a shell burst in the 
air at apparently near proximity to his post. Some delay 
took place ere I could get the pass, and when I w^ent with it I 
found Azim-oollah had retreated inside the cemetery, and was 
looking with marked interest at the fire of the Russian guns. 
I told him what he w^as to do, and regretted my inability to 
accompany him, as I was going out to dinner at a mess in the 
Light Division. ' Oh,' said he, ' this is a beautiful place to 
see from ; I can see everything, and, as it is late, I will ask 
you to come some other day, and will watch here till it is 
time to go home.' He said, laughingly, ' I think you will 
never take that strong place ;' and in reply to me, when I 
asked him to come to dine with me at my friend's, where I 
was sure he would be welcome, he said, with a kind of sneer, 
^ Thank you, but recollect I am a good Maliomedan !' ' But,' 
said I, ^you dined at Misseri's?' ^ Oh, yes: I was joking. 
I am not such a fool as to believe in these foolish things. I 
am of no relimon.' When I came home that nio-ht I found 



650 APPENDIX. 

he was asleep in my camp-bed^ and my servant told me lie 
had enjoyed my stores very freely. In the morning he was 
up and off, ere I was awake. On my table I found a piece 
of paper — ^Azim-oollah Khan presents his compliments to 
Russell, Esquire, and begs to thank him most truly for his 
kind attentions, for which I am most obliged.'' 

" This fellow, as we all know, was the Nana's secretaiy, and 
chief adviser in the massacres at Cawnpore. Now, is it not 
curious enough that he should have felt such an interest to 
see, with his own eyes, how matters were going on in the 
Crimea? It would not be strange in a European to evince 
such curiosity ; but in an Asiatic, of the non-military caste, it 
certainly is. He saw the British army in a state of some de- 
pression, and he formed, as I have since heard, a very un- 
favourable opinion of its morale and physique^ in comparison 
Avith that of the French. Let us remember, that soon after 
his arrival in India he accompanied Nana Sahib to Lucknow, 
where they remained some time, and are thought by those 
who recollect their tone and demeanour, to have exhibited 
considerable insolence and hauteur towards the Europeans 
they met. Afterwards the worthy couple, on the pretence oi 
a pilgrimage to the hills — a Hindoo and Mussulman joined in 
a holy excursion ! — visited the military stations all along the 
main trunk-road, and went as far as Umballah. It has been 
suggested that their object in going to Simlah was to tamper 
with the Goorkha regiment stationed in the hills ; but that, 
finding on their arrival at Umballah a portion of the regiment 
were in cantonments, they were unable to effect their pur- 
pose with these men, and desisted from their proposed journey 
on the plea of the cold weather. That the Nana's demeanour 
towards us should have undergone a change at this time is 
not at all wonderful ; for he had learned the irrevocable de- 
termination of the authorities to refuse what he — and, let me 
add, the majority of the millions of Hindoos who knew the 
circumstances — considered to be his just rights as adopted 
heir of the ex-Peishwah of the Mahrattas. When the great 
villany was planned is not now ascertainable ; but it must be 
remarked, as a piece of evidence in some degree adverse to 
the supposition that Nana Sahib had successfully tampered 



APPENDIX. 651 

with the troops at Cawnpore, tliat the latter did not evince 
any design of making him their leader, nor did they hold any 
communication with him on their revolt, and that they were 
all marching off for Delhi when he and his creatures went to 
tlieir camp, and by his representations, promises, and actual 
disbursements, induced them to go back and assault Wheeler 
in his feeble entrencliments." 

[The statement in the above, that the Nana Sahib visited 
Umballah in the spring of 1857, is new. Azim-oollah Khan 
was certainly there ; for Captain Martineau, who had pre- 
viously made acquaintance with him on board a steamer, on 
his return to India, met him at that station in the early part 
of the year, but was not aware that he accompanied the Nana.] 



NATIVE VERSION OF THE BEGINNING OF THE MUTINY. 

[The subjoined letter, the original of which fell into the 
hands of the Pun jabee officials, is, on many accounts, curious 
and interesting. It is important, too, as showing how general 
was the belief that the whole army was to " take time" from 
the Meerut Brigade. The statement in this letter may be 
advantageously compared with what is said on the same sub- 
ject in the letter at page 641 :] 

From Nund Singh, Umritsur, to Sirdar Nelial Singh, Rawul 

Pindee, 

"June 10, 1857. 
After compliments, — " You wrote to me to ascertain the 
true circumstances connected with the cartridges. I have 
made inquiries from different sources. The fact is this : 

"Near Calcutta, five coss distant from it, there is a place 
called Achanuk.* There is a Government cantonment at that 
place. At that place a Hindostanee was drawing water out 
of a well. A ^ Chumar' came in and asked the Hindostanee 

* Barrack pore. 



652 ArrENDix. 

to give him water to drink. The Hindostanee told him thai 
he liad better go to some other place to drink water, 

" ' How,' said the Hindostanee, ' can I give you water to 
drink ? You are a " Chumar." '* 

" Upon this words were exchanged between them. The 
Chumar said : 

" ' You do not give me water to drink, and affect to be so I'e- 
ligious : and the fat of the cow and pig which I prepare with 
my own hands you will bite off with your teeth.' 

"These and similar words having been exchanged between 
them, they came to blows. The other people, who had heard 
the talk about the ' fat,' rescued the ' Chumar,' and made in- 
quiries from him in a conciliatory manner. 

" Then two men went along with him to that place,t which 
was a little removed from the cantonment. There tliey saw 
with their own eyes about fifty or sixty Chumars working and 
putting on the fat of both the animals on the cartridges. 
They returned from thence homewards, and described all to 
the Soubahdars and other officers. 

"It was agreed between them that they should remain silent 
at the time, but refuse to receive the cartridges when they 
should be given to them. 

" ' It would then be proper to remonstrate. Let them (the 
Government) be doing whatever they like in private. What 
business have we to murmur % ' 

" For this reason, for some time nothing broke out. About 
two or one and a half months afterwards the regiment was 
ordered to receive these cartridges, (and it was explained to 
them) that, in the first place, the greased cartridges easily 
went down into the musket ; and, secondly, they prevented 
the musket from being affected by the damp. But as the 
men already knew (all about them), they refused to receive 
them. The European officers at that place (Barrackpore) 
were very hot-tempered; therefore, in consequence of this 
refusal a quarrel soon sprung up. Immediately the European 
troops were brought out, and surrounded the regiment. The 
latter were ordered to give up their arms. They replied: 

* The lowest class amon;^- the f The place where cartiidges were 
Hindoos, who work in leather. said to be made. 



AITENDIX. 653 

Give us our pay and take away the arms.' The regiments 
were then made to put down their arms, and they having re- 
ceived their pay each went away to their home. All the 
Sepoys in this country, at Kurnaul, Meerut, &c., were some 
way or other related (to those of the disbanded regiments). 
(The men of the latter) wrote to the former, telling them what 
had occurred, and stated *that we have on this account 
quitted the service, and have seen all with our own eyes. 
We have written this to you for your information. If you 
should receive these cartridges, intermarriage, and eating and 
drinking in common, shall cease between yourselves and us.' 

" When, at Dinapore, the cartridges were distributed by the 
English, they were refused ; the men stated that ' Meerut is 
the principal cantonment. Distribute the cartridges there 
first of all, and we will take them afterwards.' 

" The distribution of the cartridges having been ordered at 
Meerut, and the men having been already acquainted with 
the circumstances connected with them, refused to receive 
them. But a company which was sent for to receive the 
cartridges, not having obeyed the order, were placed in con- 
finement by the European officers. Intelligence of this 
having reached the rest of the troops, all attacked the jail, 
and set at liberty the men of the company, and also the other 
prisoners. The disturbance then grew high. 

" At the very first, when the regiment at Achanuk (Barrack- 
pore) was disbanded, a requisition was made to England for 
twenty more European regiments. But these did not sail in 
steamers, but are coming in other ships which sail with the 
force of the wind. 

" The truth appears to be, that the report of the fat being 
used is not altogether untrue ; much is commonly made of a 
little thing, but it cannot be that anything can be produced 
from nothing. Is ever a tree produced without the seed? 
It cannot be. And now that orders have been read to all the 
regiments to the effect that these cartridges will not be served 
out, and shall either be cut up or flooded, consider that the 
very circumstance of such an order having been read, anni- 
hilates the belief that there was nothing wrong in these 
cartridgofi. 



654 APrENDIX. 

" You are wise yourself ; the real foundation of this dis- 
turbance is what I have described. But all things are known 
J:o God only, who is omniscient." — MS, Records, 



THE MAY PKOCLAMATIOX. 

[The following is the proclamation referred to at page 608 :] 

*' Port William, Home Department, May 36, 1S57. 
" Proclamation, 

" The Governor-General of India in Council has warned the 
Army of Bengal, that the tales by which the men of certain 
Kogiments have been led to suspect that offence to their Keli- 
gion or injury to their Caste is meditated by the Government 
of India, are malicious falsehoods. 

" The Governor-General in Council has learnt that this sus- 
picion continues to be propagated by designing and evil- 
minded men, not only in the Army, but amongst other 
classes of the people. 

" He knows that endeavours are made to persuade Hindoos 
and Mussulmans, Soldiers and Civil Subjects, that their reli- 
gion is threatened secretl}^, as well as openly, by the acts of 
the Government, and that the Government is seeking in 
various ways to entrap them into a loss of Caste for purposes 
of its own. 

" Some have been already deceived and led astray by these 
tales. 

" Once more, then, the Governor-General in Council warns 
all classes against the deceptions that are practised on them. 

^' The Government of India has invariably treated the reli- 
gious feelings of all its subjects with careful respect. The 
Governor-General in Council has declared that it will never 
cease to do so. He now repeats that declaration, and he em- 
phatically proclaims that the Government of India entertains 
no design to interfere with their Religion or Caste, and that 
nothing has been, or will be done by the Government to affect 



APPENDIX. 655 

tlip free exercise of the observances of Religion or Caste by 
every class of the people. 

"The Government of India has never deceived its subjects, 
therefore the Governor-General in Council now calls upon 
them to refuse their belief to seditious lies. 

" This notice is addressed to those who hitherto, by habitual 
loyalty and orderly conduct, liave shown their attachment to 
the Government, and a well-founded faith in its protection and 
justice. 

" The Governor-General in Council enjoins all such persons 
to pause before they listen to false guides and traitors wlio 
would lead them into danger and disgrace. 

" By Order of the Governor-General of India in Council, 

" Cecil Beadon, 
"Secretary to the Government of Ind'a." 



ADDENDUM. 

AMMUNITION FOR TWO-GEOOVED RIFLES. 

After the statement at pages 516-18, respecting the com- 
position of the greasing materials used with the old two- 
grooved rifles, was in type, I succeeded in tracing the ori- 
ginal orders on the subject, drawn up by the Military Board 
in 1847. The following is the material part of the Board's 
Memorandum, approved by the Commander-in-Chief and the 
Governor-General ; 

" 1st. The ammunition of two-grooved rifles is to be pre- 
pared as blank cartridge of three drachms of musketry pow- 
der, in blue paper, made up in bundles of ten. 

"2nd. The balls to be put up, five in a string, in small 
cloth bags, with a greased patch of fine cloth — a portion car- 
ried in a ball-bag attached to the girdle on the right side, and 
the remainder in pouch. 

" 3rd. Patches to be made of calico or long cloth, and 
issued ready greased from magazines ; a portion of greasino; 
composition will also be issued with the patches for the pur- 



8.56 ArPFNDlX. 

pose of renewal when required., and instructions for its pre- 
paration forwarded to magazine officers by the Militarv 
Board." 

[The following were the instructions issued in accordance 
with this Memorandum :] 

'' The mode of preparing the grease and applying it to the 
cloth to be as follows : — To three pints of country linseed 
oil, add one-fourth of a pound of beeswax, which mix by 
melting the wax in a ladle, pouring the oil in and allowing it 
to remain on the fire until the composition is thoroughly 
melted. The cloth is then to be dipped in it until every part 
is saturated, and held by one corner until the mixture ceases 
\o run, after which it is to be laid out as smooth as possible 
on a clean spot to cool. The above quantity of composition 
will answer for three yards of long cloth, from which 1200 
patches can be made." 

[These instructions were approved by the Governor-General 
(Lord Hardinge), in a letter from the Military Secretary to 
the Adjutant-General, dated April 6, 1847. I can trace no 
subsequent order cancelling the above ; and as I am assured 
by the officer who held the post of Inspector-General of Ord- 
nance during the administration of Lord Dalhousie and Lord 
Canning that this composition continued in use up to 1857, I 
cannot doubt that the impression at head-quarters that the 
"patches" were greased with mutton fat was altogether a 
mistake.] 



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INDEX 



Page 



Abbott (Evelyn) - 


- 2,13 


(T. K.) - - 


10 


(E. A.) - - 


10 


Acland (A. H. D.) 


2 


Acton. (Eliza) 


21 


Acworth (H. A.) - 


14 


iEschylus - 


13 


Albemarle (Earl of) 


8 


Alden (W. L.) - 


15 


Allingham (W.) - 


- 14. 22 


Anstey (F.) - 


15 


Aristophanes 


13 


Aristotle 


10 


Armstrong (E.) - 


2 


(G. F. Savage) 


14 



OF 

Page 

- 10, 12 
24 

- 15. 20 



AUTHORS. 



5. 14, 22 
15 

6, 14, 20 

2 



6,8 

8, 24 



(E. J.) - - 

Arnold, (E. Lester) 

(Sir Edwin) - 

(Dr. T.) - - 

Ashley (W. J.) - 
Astor (J. J.) - - 
Atelier du Lys (Author of) 
Babington (W. D.) - 
Bacon - - - - 5 
Bagehot (W.) - 5, 12 
Bagwell (R.) 
Bain (Alexander) - 
Baker (James) 

(Sir S. W.) - 

Balfour (A.J.) 

Ball (J. T.) - - - 2 I 

Baring-Gould (Rev. S.) 22 
Barnett (Rev. S. A. & Mrs.) 12 ' 
Battye (Aubyn Trevor) 22 
Baynes (T. S.) - - 22 
Beaconsfield (Earl of) - 15 
Beaufort (Duke of) - 8 j 

Becker (Prof.) - - 13 j 
Beesly (A. H.) - - 14 
Bell (Mrs. Hugh)- - 14 I 
Bent (J. Theodore) 
Besant (Walter) - 
Bickerdyke (J.) - 
Bicknell (A. C.) - 
Bird (R.) 

Blackwell (Elizabeth) 
Boase (C. W.) - 
Boedder (B.) 
Boulton (Helen M.) 
Boyd (A. K. H.) 
Brassey (Lady) - 

(Lord) - - 2, 7, 8, 

Bray (C. and Mrs.) 
Bright (J. F.) - - 
Broadfoot (W.) - 
Buckle (H. T.) - 
Bull(T.) 
Burke (U. R.) 
Burrows (Montagu) 
Butler (E. A.) 

(Samuel) 

Camobell-Walker (A.)- 
Cannan (E.) 
Carmichael (J.) - 
Chesnev (Sir G.) 
Chisholm (G. G.) 
Cholmondeley-Pennell (H.) 



5, 22, 24 
6 



Davidson (W. L.) 
De la Saussaye (C.) 
Deland (Mrs.) 
Dent (C. T.) 
De Salis (Mrs.) - 
De Tocqueville (A.) 
Devas (C. S.) 
Dickinson (G. L.) 
DougalUL.)- 
Dowell (S.) - 
Doyle (A. Conan) 
Ellis (J. H.) - 
Ewald (H.) - 
Falkener (E.) 
Farnell (G. S.) - 
Farrar (Dean) 
Fitzpatrick (W. J.) 
Fitzwygram (Sir F.) - 
Ford(H.) - 
Fowler (Edith H.) 
Francis (Francis) 
Freeman (Edward A.) - 
Froude (James A.) 3, 5, 
Furneaux (W.) 
Gardiner (Samuel R.) - 
Gerard (D. ) - - 

Gibson (Hon. H.) 
Gilkes (A. H.) - 
Gleig (G. R.) 
Goethe - - - - 
Graham (P. A.) - 

(G. F.)- - - 

Grant (Sir A.) 
Graves (R. P.) - 
Green (T. Hill) - 
Greville (C. C. F.) 
Grev (Mrs. W.) - 
Grove (F. C.) 

(Mrs. Lilly) - 

Gurney (Rev. A.)- 

Gwilt (J.) - 

Hagtjard (H. Rider) - 

Halliwell-Phillipps (J.) 

Harte (Bret) 

Hartwig (G.) 

HassaU (A.) . 

Haweis (Rev. H. R.) - 

Hawker (Col. Peter) - 

Hayward (J. M.) - 

Hearn (W. E.) - 

Heathcote(J.M.&C. G.) 

Helmholtz (Hermann von) 18 



11, 12 

3 
15 
12 
16 
9 
3 
9 
13 

12, 16 

3 
7 
9 
16 
9 

, 7, 16 
17 

3 
16 

9 
16 

6 
14 



Lecky (W. E. H.) 
Lees (J. A.) - 
Lejeune (General) 
Lemon (Ida) 
Leonard (A. G.) - 
Lewes (G. H.) - 
Lodge (H, C.) - 
Loftie (W. J.) - 
Longman (C. J.) - i 

(F. W.) 

(G. H.)- - - 

Lubbock (Sir John) 
Lyall (Edna) 
Lyttelton (Hon. R. H.) 
Lytton (Earl of) - 
Macaulay (Lord) - 
Macdonald (George) 
Macfarren (Sir G. A 
Mackail (J. W.) - ' - 
Mackinnon (J.) 
Macleod (H. D.) - 
Macpherson (H. A.) - 
Maher (M.) - 
Malleson (Col. G. B.) - 
Marbot (Baron de) 



Page 



4, 14 

7.21 

5 

16 

23 

II 

3 

3 

9.23 

9 

8 

13 
16 



Marshman (J. C.) 
Martineau (James) 



14 

4. 14, 21 

24 

I- 23 

13 

4 

- 12, 21 

9 
II 
3 
6 
5 
24 
9 
16 
19 



Herbert (W. V.) 
Hillier (G. Lacy) - 
Hodgson (Shadworth H.) 
Hornung (E. W.) 
Hewitt (W.) 
Hudson (W. H.) - 
Hume (David) 
Hunt (W.) - 
Hutchinson (Horace G.) 



14, 20 



21, 23 
16 



Cicero 
Clarke (R. F.) 
Clegg(J. T.) - - 
Clodd (Edward) - 
Clutterbuck (W. J.) - 
Cochrane (A.) 
Comyn (L. N.) - 
Conington (John) 
Conybeare (W. J.) and 
Howson (Dean) - 
Cox (Harding) 
Crake (A. D.) 
Creiffhton (Bishop) 
Curzon (Hon. G. N.) - 



Ingelow (Jean) 
James (C. A.) 
Jefferies (Richard) 
Jewett (S. O.) 
Johnson (J. & J. H.) 
Joyce (P. W.) 
Justinian 
Kalisch (M. M.) - 
Kant (I.) - 
Kaye (Sir J. W.) - 
Kendall (May) - 
KiUick (A. H.) - 
Kitchin (G. W.) - 
Knight (E. F.) - 
Kbstlin (J.) - 
Ladd (G. T.) 
Lang (Andrew) 

3, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 19, 23 
Lascelles (Hon. G.) - 8, 9 
Laurie (S. S.) - - 23 



31 

3.7! 

6! 

Ill 



Maskelyne (J. N.) 

Matthews (B.) 

Maunder (S.) 

Max Miiller (F.) 11, 12, 23, 24 

May (Sir T. Erskine) - 

Meade (L. T.) 

Melville (G. J. Whyte) 

Merivale (Dean) - 

Mill (James) 

(John Stuart) 

Milner (G.) - 
Molesworth (Mrs.) 
Montague (F. C.) 
Moore (J. W.) - 
Mosso (A.) - 
Munk(W.) - 
Murdoch (W. G.Burn) 
Murray (R. F.) - 
Nansen (F.) - 
Nesbit (E.) - 
O'Brien (W.) 
Oliphant (Mrs.) - 
Onslow (Earl of) - 
Osbourne (L) 
Palmer (A. H.) - 
Parr (Mrs. Louisa) 
Payn (James) 
Payne-Gallwey (Sir R.) 
Peary (Mrs. Josephine) 
Peek(H.) - 
Perring (Sir P., Bt.) - 
Phillips (M.) 
Phillipps-Wolley (C.) - 
Piatt (S. & J.J.) - 
Pole (W.) - - - 9 

Pollock (W. H.) - - 8 

Poole (W.H. and Mrs.) 22 
Poore(G.V.) - - 23 
Pritchett (R. T.) - - 8 

Prince (Helen C.) - 16 
Proctor (R. A.) - 9, 18, 23 
Quillinan uVIrs.) - - 7 

Quintana (A.) - - 16 
Raine (James) 
Ransome (Cyril) 
Rhoades (J.) - 13, 15, 

Rhoscomyl (O.) - - 17 
Rich (A.) - - - 13 
Richardson (Sir B. W.) 23 
Richman (L B.) - - 4 

Rickaby (John) - - 11 

(Joseph) - - II 

Ridley (Annie E.) - 5 

Riley (J. W.) - - 15 



II, 12 

23 

19, 20 

4 

4 
II 

5 

7 
15 

7 
15 

4 
16 

8 
17 

6 

20 

16 

8, 9 I 

^5 I 



Page 

- 12, 19 

6, II, 13, 24 

9 

3 

- 21, 23 

9 



-17, 



Roget (Peter M.) 
Romanes (G. J.) 
Ronalds (A.) 
Roosevelt (T.) 
Rossetti (M. F.) 
Saintsbury (G.) 
Scott-Montagu (Hon. J.) 
Seebohm (F.) 
Selous (F. C.) 
Sewell (Eliz. M.) - 
Shakespeare 
Shand (A. L) 
Sharpe (R. R.) - 
Shearman (M.) 
Sheppard (Edgar) 
Sinclair (A.) - 
Smith (R. Bosworth) - 

(W. P. Haskett) - 

Solovyoff(V. S.)- 
Sophocles - - - 
Soulsby (Lucy H.) 
Stanlej' (Bishop) - 
Steel (A. G.) 

(J. H.) - - - 

Stephen (Sir James) - 

(Leslie) 

Stephens (H. Morse) - 

(W. W.) 

Stevens (R. W.) - 

Stevenson (R. L.) 

Stock (St. George) 

' Stonehenge ' 

Stuart-Wortley (A. J.) 

Stubbs (J. W.) - 

Sturgis (J.) - 

Suffolk & Berkshire (Earl of) 8 

Sullivan (Sir E.) - 

Sully (James) 

Sutherland (A. and G.) 

Suttner (B. von) - 

Swinburne (A. J.) 

Symes (J. E.) 

Tavlor (Meadows) 

Thom (J. H.) 

Thomson (Archbishop) 

Todd (A.) - 

Tovnbee (A.) 

Trevelyan (Sir G. O.) - 

Trollope (Anthony) 

Tvndall (J.) - 

Tvrrell (R. Y.) - 

Upton (F. K. and Bertha) 

Van Dyke (J. C.) - 

Verne\- (Frances P. and 

Margaret M.) - 
Virgil - - - - 
Wakeman (H. O.) 

14 j Walford (Mrs.) - 
24 I Walker (Jane H.) 

8, 16 i Walpole (Spencer) 

15 j Walsingham (Lord) 



9 

17 

15 

9 

4 

8 

5 

8 

5 

7 

23 

13 

20 

18 

8 

7 

6 

7 

5 

6 

23 

19 

II 

7 

9 

5 

15 



5.6 
17 
7 
13 
19 
23 

6 

13 

5 

6,17 



Vv'aher(J.) 

Watson (A. E. T.) - 8, 9 

Webb(Mr.and Mrs. Sidney) 12 

Weir(R.) - - . 8 

West (B. B.) 

Weyman (Stanley) 

Whately (Archbishop) 

(E.Jane) - 

Whishaw (F.J.) - 
Wilcocks (J. C.) - 



17,23 
17 



2 i Wilkins (G.)- 
Willich (C. M.) - 
Wolff (H.W.) - 
Wood (J. G.) 
Woodgate (W. B.) - 
Wood-Martin (W. G.) 
Wordsworth (Elizabeth) 
Wylie (J. H.) 
Youatt (W.) - 
Zeller(E.) - 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 



Badminton Library (The) - - - 8 

Biography, Personal Memoirs, &c. - 5 

Children's Books ig 

Classical Literature, Translation, 

&c. 13 

Cookery, Domestic Management, &c. - 21 

Evolution, Anthropology, &c. - - 13 

Fiction, Humour, &c. - - - - 15 

Fur and Feather Series - - - 9 
History, Politics, Polity, Political 

Memoirs, &c. 2 

Index of Authors . . . - i 

Language, History and Science of - 12 



Mental, Moral, and Political Philo- 
sophy 10 

Miscellaneous and Critical Works - 22 

Miscellaneous Theological Works - 24 

Poetry and the Drama - - - 14 

Political Economy and Economics - 12 

Popular Science - - - - 17 

Silver Library (The) - - - - 20 

Si ORT AND Pastime . - . . 8 
Travel and Adventure, the Colonies, 

&c. 6 

Veterinary Medicine, &c. - - - 7 

Works of Reference - - - - ^9 



History, Polities, Polity 

Abbott. — A History of Greece. 
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ANNUAL REGISTER {THE). A 

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Arnold (Thomas, D.D.), formerly 
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K n i g h t. — Madagascar in War 
Time : The Experiences o^^'TheTimes' 
Special Correspondent with the 
Hovas during the French Invasion 
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numerous Illustrations and Map. 

Lang". — St. Andrews. By Andrew 
Lang. With 8 Plates and 24 Illustrations 
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Lecky (William Edward Hartpole), 

History of England in the Eigh- 

TEEh TH CEA TURY. 

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Frederick the Great. 

Ranke and Gladstone. 

Milton and Machiavelli. 

Lord Byron. 

Lord Ciive. 

Lord Byron, and The 

Comic Dramatists of 

the Restoration. 



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Mackinnon. — The Union of Eng- 
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